Abstract
It is well known that 4-methyl-5 (2-hydroxyethyl) thiazole (MHET) can replace thiamine as a nutrient for some bacteria (1). Abderhalden (2,3) without success attempted to demonstrate that MHET could replace thiamine in the diet of the rat. Since then, MHET and the pyrimidine moiety of thiamine (2-methyl-4-amino-5-hydroxymethyl pyrimidine) have been isolated from urine of rats after givin large doses of thiamine (4,5), suggesting that the rat is capable of cleaving thiamine to give these two products. Also Van Eys (6) has identified MHET as a component of glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase, which indicates a strong possibility that MHET is biologically active. It, therefore, seemed desirable to investigate once again the possibility that MHET is biologically active. As workers in the past have apparently achieved essentially negative results (2,3,6,8) our experimental approach involved 3 special considerations.1. From chemical considerations it seemed possible that MHET, if not carefully prepared, may not be...
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Schedule a callMore From: Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (New York, N.Y.)
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