Abstract
The factor which metabolizes S-carbalkoxythiamine (CAT) to thiamine is widely distributed in animal tissues, but in different degrees. The highest activity was found in liver, especially in microsomal fraction of the cell. Among other tissues, fairly high activities were found in erythrocyte, blood plasma, kidney and intestine, on the other hand, the activities in nervous and muscular tissues were relatively low. In order to elucidate the characters of this factor, its partial purification from rabbit liver has been attempted. CAT metabolizing factor in the liver was extracted by treating the homogenate with ethylene dichloride, which was found to solubilize and stabilize the factor, and the extract was successively fractionated with basic lead acetate and ammonium sulfate, then further purified by removing inactive protein with calcium phosphate gel and finally lyophilized after dialyzed the extract against water. The specific activity of this partially purified preparation was about 65-fold that of the homogenate.
