Effect of Barbiturates on Oxidative Phosphorylation.

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Abstract
It has been shown that thiopental, pentobarbital and amobarbital lower the phosphate : oxygen uptake ratio obtained in particulate tissue preparations from liver and brain respiring on a pyruvate substrate. This depression is obtained at concentrations of the drugs which have only a slight effect on the oxygen uptake of the preparations and which approximate those which are necessary in vivo to produce surgical anesthesia. It is postulated that such an uncoupling of phosphorylation from oxidation may be one of the ways in which barbiturates act to produce anesthesia.