Abstract
DURING an investigation of the effect of alkaline conditions on the decomposition of proteins, it was found that several proteins when heated with an aqueous suspension of cadmium hydroxide at pH 9.5 released hydrogen sulphide quantitatively from cystine and cysteine. Free cystine and reduced gluta-thione behaved similarly. Methionine and gelatin, which contains methionine but no cystine or cysteine, did not produce hydrogen sulphide under these conditions. These results are shown in Table 1. Sodium hydroxide at concentrations of 1 N did not quantitatively release hydrogen sulphide when substituted for cadmium hydroxide. This is in agreement with previous work in the literature1,2.
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ROBBINS, F., FIORITI, J. Alkaline Degradation of Cystine, Glutathione and Sulphur-containing Proteins. Nature 200, 577–578 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1038/200577a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/200577a0
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