Enzymatic Hydrolysis of the —S—CO— Linkage

Abstract

During biological and biochemical studies of a new derivative of thiamine, O,S-diacetyl thiamine, synthesized by Matsukawa and Kawasaki¹, it was found that this substance was readily hydrolysed to thiamine and acetic acid by liver extracts². O,S-Di-acetyl thiamine: was found in the earlier work to be almost as efficacious as thiamine by the prevention assay of B₁-deficiency in Uroloncha domestica. Although a number of reports have appeared concerning the hydrolysis of ordinary esters by various esterases, no investigation seems to have been carried out on the enzymatic hydrolysis of the —S—CO— linkage except that on the “succinyl and acetyl coenzyme A deacylases” reported by Gergeley et al. ³. We have therefore studied the hydrolysis of lower thioesters, such as methyl thioacetate and ethyl thioacetate, by animal tissue extracts, comparing them with methyl acetate and ethyl acetate. Manometric determination was used for enzyme assays in much of this work.