Determination of a Small Quantity of Cystine in the Presence of a Large Amount of Cysteine

Abstract

  A procedure is described to precisely determine a very small amount of cystine in the presence of a large amount of cysteine. After completely modifying cysteine with N-ethylmaleimide, the remaining reagent was reacted with DL-homocysteine. Cystine was determined, after being reduced with dithiothreitol, by the reaction with ninhydrin carried out under acidic conditions. The procedure makes it possible to precisely determine the amount of cystine present with cysteine in a concentration ratio of 1:2,000. By employing this procedure, auto-oxidation of cysteine to cystine in a mixture for the L-cysteine α,β-elimination reaction was investigated.