Hans Machleidt

Conversion of fluoroacetic acid to amino acids in the mammal

Abstract When living mice were poisoned with [2-14C] fluoroacetic acid, no detectable amounts of fluorocitric acid were found in the organism. Similarly, no fluorocitric acid was found in homogenates of organs of rats, guinea pigs, rabbits and pigs after incubation, with radioactive fluoroacetic acid. However, several amino acids were formed, as can be shown by electrophoresis followed by identification reactins. Two of these are acidic amino acids and behave similarly to fluorocitric acid in paper chromatography. When pig liver is incubated with unlabelled fluorocitric acid, the formation of an amino acid can be demonstrated by a single electrophoresis. 1 mg of this amino acid was purified and contained 9.3% fluorine.