抄録
Biotin L-sulfoxide has been isolated from Aspergillus niger culture filtrate by Wright et al. This compound has been shown to be as active as biotin for Neurospora but have a negligible activity for lactic acid bacteria and yeast. In Japanese fermentation products, in which Aspergillus oryzae plays an important role in the manufacturing process, it may be expected that biotin L-sulfoxide is formed by the mold and its presence might cause a discrepancy of the assay values of biotin between Neurospora method and yeast or lactic acid bacteria method. In this paper the authors performed a comparative assay of biotin activity in various Japanese fermentation products using Neurospora crassa and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, and found a considerable difference between the results obtained by the two methods, as expected. The biotin active substances in the samples were found to consist of biocytin, biotin D-and L-sulfoxides and biotin.
