1. The unadapted cells are not capable of adapting for ascorbic acid, even if they are in contact with ascorbid acid for a long time, but they can adapt rapidly in the presence of a small amount of glucose and of casein hydrolysate.
2. Ascoraic acid-adapted cells degrade araboascorbic acid and glucoascorbic acid besides AsA, but fail to degrade other reductones, e.g., reductic acid, dihydroxymaleic acid and 5-methyl-3, 4-dihydroxytetrone.
3. The optimal pH of the ascorbic acid-oxidase in the unadapted cells is 5.0 and the optimal substrate concentration is 800μM.
4. The ascorbic acid-oxidase is inactive for the reductones other than ascorbic acid i.e., araboascorbic acid, glucoascorbic acid, reductic acid, dihydroxymaleic acid and 5-methyl-3, 4-dihydroxytetrone.

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1. D-Gluconic acid and D-ribose are degraded well accompanied with phosphorylation by both adapted and inadapted cells for ascorbic acid, whereas other pentoses, e.g., DL-xylose and DL-arabinose, are not matabolized.
2. It was assumed by successive adaptation that AsA is partially degraded through araboascorbic acid through the Warburg-Dickens-Cohen pathway. Araboascorbic acid is also assumed to proceed through the above pathway.

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1. From the fact that dehydroascorbic acid metabolism of ascorbic acidadapted bacterium was markedly accerelated by adding a small amount of glucose or ascorbic acid, a reductive process is assumed to be involved in the metabolism of dehydroascorbic acid.
2. D-Arabinosone was hardly metabolized by unadapted cells, whereas it was slowly metabolized by adapted cells and it was markedly accerelated by adding a small amount of ascorbic acid. It suggests that D-arabinosone is reduced to D-ribose as follows.
Ascorbic acid→dehydroascorbic acid -CO₂→diketo-L-gulonic acid→L-xylosone→D-arabinosone +2H→D-ribose

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1. It is presumed that glucose is metabolized by a AsA-degrading bacterium through Embden and Meyerhof's pathway anaerobically and through Warburg and Dickens' pathway aerobically.
2. The metabolic products of araboacorbic and D-gluconic acid and D-ribose were proved to be lactic, acetic and formic acid by paper chromatography.
3. D-Ribose was found to be a metabolic product of dehydroascorbic acid.
4. The lactic acid, which was found on the way of the degradation of ascorbic acid or other substrates, was proved to be a D-form.
5. The total pathway of ascorbic acid degradation was clarified.

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It was observed that metabolic abnormalities in the liver damaged by CCl₄ were definitely improved by application of adenosine triphosphate or thioctic acid, particularly the former was found to be more effective than the latter in the action toward glycolysis disturbance as represented by the changes of acid-soluble phosphate, copper, copper-protein, transaminase and dehydrogenase activities.

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1. Adenosine triphosphate was proved to have stronger activation than thioctic acid for the electroencephalogram of the patients of liver diseases.
2. The application of ATP (2 cases) proved obviously effective upon the coma due to cirrhosis of the liver.

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The existence of an enzyme catalyzing FAD synthesis from FMN and ATP was proved in mycelium of Er. ashbyii. The enzyme requires Mg²⁺ or Mn²⁺ for its full activity. The optimum pH is 8.0. When riboflavin is added to the reaction mixture in place of FMN, FAD synthesis occurs also, but not so much as in the case of FMN. It seems, therefore, that FAD synthesis by Er. ashbyii may occur through the reaction of ATP and FMN, formed by phosphorylation of riboflavin.

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Thioctic acid was determined microbiologically using Streptococcus faecalis 10 C1. The serum level of thioctic acid was frequently found to be reduced in patients with diseases of the liver, especially in those with liver cirrhosis. In patients with severe diabetes mellitus and in some patients with polyneuritis or arteriosclerosis, the serum level of thioctic acid was also found to be decreased.

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1. In the determination of vitamin D in liver oils using Superfiltrol chromatography, the determination can be disturbed by the appearance of the degradation products of vitamin A in the vitamin D fraction, when a large quantity of vitamin A is present. The fraction eluted prior to the vitamin D fraction contains more amount of the non-vitamin D substance.
2. The E values at 500 and 550mμ of the colored solution by antimony reaction of the non-vitamin D substance derived from vitamin A were about equal 120 seconds after mixing the reagents.
3. In the antimony trichloride reaction of vitamin D the absorption maximum lies at 500mμ and the E value is 0 at 550mμ.
4. The difference E₅₅₀-E₅₅₀ after 120 seconds corresponds to E₅₀₀ of vitamin D, with no interference by non-vitamin D substances. Determination of vitamin D is not affected, if the amount of vitamin A is less than 4000μg for one Superfiltrol chromatography.
5. Use of ethylene dichloride containing acetyl chloride in the antimony reaction makes the reagent more stable and the color reaction more intense than the use of chloroform. The E values are less affected by temperature. The optimal conditions for the determination have been described.
6. The vitamin D contents of several liver oils, which are considered to produce large amounts of non-vitamin D interfering substances, were assayed. The values obtained by the present method were definitely lower than those calculated from E₂₆₅, assuming that the absorbance was entirely due to vitamin D.
7. The values of E₅₀₀-E₅₅₀ of solutions containing vitamin A fraction were negative. Therefore the values for vitamin D are lower than the true values when the solutions contain the vitamin A fraction.

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1. normal- and pseudo-Dihydrothiamine were oxidized by various organic and inorganic oxidants having high redox-potential.
2. normal- and pseudo-Dihydrothiamine were oxidized by the dyes having the redox potentials higher than +0.40, +0.36, and +0.23V at pH 2.2, 5.0, and 7.0 respectively.
3. The absolute yield of thiamine produced by the oxidation of dihydrothiamine was about 50per cent under the experimental conditions described in this paper.

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Dihydrothiamine was subjected to a coupled peroxidative reaction by catalase and glucose-oxidase system, but the efficiency of the system to produce thiamine was low contrary to our expectation. However, results were obtained which lead to the conclusion that dihydrothiamine was converted to thiamine under physiological condition. It seems to explain the reported thiamine-like activity of dihydrothiamine in animals.

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It was found that a compound or compounds present in green leaves oxidized dihydrothiamine non-enzymatically. Dihydrothiamine was oxidized rapidly under physiological condition by the fractions containing a greater part of coenzyme Q and plastoquinone extracted from green leaves of spinach with ether and n-heptane. These findings seem to support the assumption that such oxidants may be some quinone derivatives.

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