Leucine into optical isomers

It has been noted that a greater amount of ketone bodies was produced from the D- or Dir-leucine than from the ir-isomer. Since both optical isomers yield the same products and follow the same catabolic pathway subsequent to their deamination it is to be inferred that the difference results from the fact that li-leucine is in part incorporated into the body protein, while the D-leucine is not. 

Alanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, tyrosine, leucine, phenylalanine and also a-amino-n-caproic acid and a-aminobutyric acid have in this way been separated by Fischer into their optically active isomers. To these must be added ornithine which was synthesised by Sorensen in 1903, and separated into d- and 1-ornithine in 1905. 

The circulins—As early as 1949, Peterson and Reineke characterized circulin as its sulphate. Total hydrolysis yielded D-leucine, L-threonine and L-K,y-diaminobutyric acid together with an optically active isomer of pelargonic acid. The existence of two components, found by Peterson and Reineke was later confirmed by the chromatographic separation of crude circulin into two major components, named circulin A and circulin B. In addition there was evidence for at least three other ninhydrin-positive, biologically active entities. In the hydrolysate of circulin A, L-isoleucine was found besides the amino acids previously reported . Quantitative amino acid analysis showed circulin A and B to be composed of L-a,y-diamino-butyric acid, L-threonine, D-leucine, L-isoleucine and ( + )-6-methyloctanoic acid in the molar ratio 6 2 1 1 1. After partial acid hydrolysis, fractionation and structure determination of the resulting peptides, circulin A and circulin B were formulated as cyclodecapeptides . Very recently, however, Japanese workers have revised the structure of circulin A. According to them, circulin A differs from colistin A only by a replacement of L-leucine in the latter by L-isoleucine Figure 1.7). 

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