Glucuronic acid degradation

An explanation of the nutritive aspects of D-glucuronic acid may be related to a metabolic pathway of D-glucuronic-acid degradation which results in the production of pentoses, possibly through the aid of the intestinal flora (see above). 

Scheme 4. —Smith Degradation of Heparin (Arbitrary Sequence). (R = remnant from a D-glucuronic acid residue.)...

On the assumption that methylation of the degraded arabic acid was complete, the location of hydroxyl groups in the various cleavage fragments indicates the positions through which the monosaccharide units are involved in union with the other residues. Thus the isolation of three molecular proportions of 2,3,4-trimethyl-D-glucuronic acid (VIII) and one molecular proportion of 2,3,4,6-tetramethyl-D-galactose (XI)... 

Investigations of the mechanism of decarboxylation of hexuronic acids have largely involved kinetic and tracer studies. When either D-xylo-5-hexulosonic acid or D-glucuronic acid is converted into 27 in acidified, tritiated water, the resulting 27 contains 18% and 15%, respectively, of the activity of the solvent as carbon-bound tritium.21 Further degradation studies showed that the isotope is situated on the furan ring at either position 3 or 4, or both these atoms correspond to C-3 or C-4 of the starting uronic acid. 

Most of the drug is inactivated either by conjugation with glucuronic acid (principally in the liver) or by reduction to inactive aryl amines. Active chloramphenicol (about 10% of the total dose administered) and its inactive degradation products (about 90% of the total) are eliminated in the urine. A small amount of active drug is excreted into bile and feces. The systemic dosage of chloramphenicol need not be altered in renal insufficiency, but it must be reduced markedly in hepatic failure. Newborns less than a week old and premature infants also clear chloramphenicol less well, and the dosage should be reduced to 25 mg/kg/d. 

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