Formate Metabolism in the American Cockroach, Periplaneta Americana (L.)1

Abstract

Previous work has shown that injected formate C14 is incorporated into carbons 2 and 8 of uric acid by the American roach (McEnroe and Forgash, 1957). The overall reaction is known, from studies on other organisms, to be one of a general type in which a single carbon unit at the oxidation level of formate is incorporated via tetrahydrofolic acid (Kisliuk and Sakami, 1955) into the following compounds: the ureide carbons of purines (Buchanan, 1951); the methyl group of methionine (Sakami and Welch, 1950); the amidine carbon in the ring of histidine (Levy and Coon, 1951); and the β carbon of serine (Sakami, 1948).