Trimethylammonium Salts Research Articles

Über Muscaridin

AbstractThe present communication gives a preliminary description of the isolation of a new alkaloid from Amanita muscaria L. besides muscarin and acetylcholin. The constitution of this base, called muscaridin, is established as the quaternary trimethylammonium salt of 6 amino‐2,3‐dihydroxy‐hexan.

Über Muscaridin. II

A recent investigation of Kögl, Salemink and Schuller established the constitution of muscaridin as the quaternary trimethylammonium salt of 6‐amino‐2,3‐dihydroxyhexane.The present communication gives a preliminary description of a synthesis which started from 2,3‐dihydropyran, leading to racemic muscaridin. The synthetic product gives the same RF‐value and a fully similar infrared spectrum as the natural base.

Structure of an acidic polysaccharide elaborated by Aerobacter aerogenes.

ORGANISMS of the Aerobacter–Klebsiella group have been divided1 into many serologically distinct types each of which produces its own type-specific polysaccharide. Only a few of the structures of these polysaccharides have been elucidated2–4 since in general they are of a highly complex nature. Recently we isolated an acidic polysaccharide (4.45 gm.) from the culture medium (38.4 1.) of Aerobacter aerogenes N.C.T.C. 8172 (Klebsiella type 64). The bacteria were grown both in batches and in continuous culture in an apparatus of the type described by Elsworth, Meakin, Pirt and Capell5. A peptone–glucose medium was used, the culture was aerated, the pH 5.0 and the temperature, 37°. The acidic polysaccharide was freed from neutral polysaccharide by precipitation with ‘Cetavlon’6 and from nucleic acid by the preferential solubility of its cetyl trimethyl ammonium salt in 0.25 M sodium chloride. Isolated as its sodium salt, the acidic polysaccharide had C, 45.31; H, 6.19; N, 0.81; P, 0.11 per cent and its ultra-violet absorption at 260 mµ corresponded to about 1.8 per cent nucleic acid impurity. The polysaccharide contained 28.7 per cent uronic acid (by decarboxylation7) and the infra-red spectra of the polysaccharide as the free acid and as the sodium salt confirmed the presence of carboxylic acid groups8. The polysaccharide showed [α]17 D + 29.4° (conc. 0.272 in M sodium chloride).

Reaction of ethylene bromide with trimethylamine and the neuromuscular blocking activity of ethylenebis-(trimethylammonium).

ALTHOUGH the neuromuscular blocking properties of alkylenebis-(trimethylammonium) salts have been much studied since the important, simultaneous reports of Barlow and Ing1 and of Paton and Zaimis2, the relative potency of ethylenebis-(trimethylammonium) (I) appears to have remained doubtful. In brief, I-dibromide, prepared by the reaction of ethylene bromide with trimethylamine, was reported to have unusually high activity comparable to that of tetramethylammonium (II) 1,3,4. This was most remarkable in that the C3, C4 and C6 bis salts were found to be almost inert. On the other hand, I-diiodide, prepared from ethylenediamine and methyl iodide5, was reported to display only a weak action, like that of its immediate bis-quaternary homologues2.