VITAMIN B1 NUTRITION IN SURGICAL PATIENTS AS DETERMINED BY THE BLOOD LEVEL OF PYRUVIC ACID

1 March 1944

journal article
research article
Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in Archives of Surgery

Vol. 48 (3) , 185-189
https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.1944.01230010193001

Abstract

Carboxylase is an enzyme which catalyzes the decarboxylation of pyruvic acid to carbon dioxide and water. It was first recognized by Neuberg and Karczag.¹ Auhagen² showed that the activity of carboxylase is dependent on the presence of a coenzyme which is known as cocarboxylase and which is found in animal tissues. Later Lohmann and Schuster³ were able to isolate cocarboxylase and to demonstrate that it is a pyrophosphoric ester of vitamin B1 (thiamine). Vitamin B₁ (thiamine) after ingestion is absorbed from the intestine by diffusion into the blood stream. It reaches the liver and the kidneys, where phosphorylation takes place and where the thiamine is stored as cocarboxylase, or diphosphothiamine (Ochoa and Peters⁴; Westenbrink and Goudsmit⁵). Dephosphorylation of the diphosphothiamine may take place in all of the tissues but appears to be carried out mainly in the liver and the kidneys (Ochoa⁶; Tauber

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