STUDIES ON NITROGLYCOL POISONING

DECOMPOSITION MECHANISM OF NITROGLYCOL BY NITRITE FORMING ENZYME

Abstract

We have found a new enzyme named nitrate forming enzyme which catalyzed the production of inorganic nitrate from nitroglycol or nitroglycerin in the blood and in the liver. On the other hand, the presence of nitrite forming enzyme in the liver has been known, though the mechanism of enzyme reaction was obscure. In this report, we investigated kinetically the reaction mechanism of nitrite forming enzyme by using nitroglycol, nitroglycerin and other nitrite or nitrate esters as substrate.
Clark and Litchfields' scheme for explaining the decomposition of nitroglycol, which was, in fact, proposed as the metabolic path of nitroglycol in the body, was found to be unsuitable, because the main compound in their scheme, nitrite ester, was clarified to be not formed during the decomposition of nitroglycol. Instead of their scheme, we have proposed a new scheme.