Determination of total sulfur in animal tissues

Abstract

In order effectively to investigate the role of sulfur and sulfur-containing compounds in metabolism, it became essential to determine the total sulfur content of tissues. The limited amount of information on t.he total sulfur content of animal tissues (1) suggested that there were difficulties in methodology possibly in achieving complete oxidation of t.he sulfur components, This had been observed previously for plant tissues by Painter and Franke (2)) who found the combustion method gave better recoveries of cystine and methionine sulfur, as well as higher values for total sulfur, than the method of Benedict-Denis (3). Thus far, application of the combustion method to animal tissue had not been investigated. The following method, which involves oxidation of acetone-dried tissues in a Parr bomb calorimeter and determination of sulfur by classic gravimetric procedures, has proved to be simple, reliable, and reproducible.