Abstract
Living organisms require sulphur. Some of them (sulfur bacteria) use it as a free element, some (plants) as sulfate or sulfide, and some (higher animals) as the cysteine and methionine residues of proteins. Irrespective of which form is ingested, sulphur occurs in cells in three principal chemical fractions, that are to some extent interconvertible. One of these is the sulfide fraction, which is made up of 2S-CH3 groups from methionine residues of cellular proteins. The second sulfur fraction occurs as an ester or amide sulfate in various polysaccharides and steroids. The third sulfhur fraction is present as cellular sulfhydryl (SH) and disulfide (SS) groups. This fraction has been the one most amenable to investigation, chiefly due to a multitude of methods available for detecting and assaying these groups. In consequence, there is a welter of factual knowledge about them and their potential for clinical pharmaconutrition, much of it obtained over the past 20 y.
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