Ubiquinones and Ubichromenols in the Rat

Abstract

UBIQUINONE, a naturally occurring quinone of considerable biological interest, was first isolated by Morton et al. ¹, who found it in many kinds of animal tissue. Lester et al. ² have shown that a series of such quinones exist, and have isolated, from different organisms, five compounds of general formula : differing from each other by single isoprene units (n = 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6). Further studies³ suggested that ubiquinone 50 (n = 10) was the normal quinone in higher mammals, but Rüegg et al. ⁴ have recently shown that rat liver contains ubiquinone 45 (n = 9).