The Lecithans: Their Function in the Life of the Cell (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from The Lecithans: Their Function in the Life of the Cell

The ash left on the incineration Of tissues obtained from various parts Of the body, especially the brain, has long been known to contain phosphorus. Of the chemical combination in which this phosphorus was present in the original tissues nothing was known until Gobleyl carefully studied an organic phosphorus-containing body, which he isolated from eggs and called lecithin. He Obtained as Splitting products glycero phosphoric acid and some Of the fatty acids. Diaconow2 continued this work at the suggestion of Hoppe Seyler, and isolated as splitting products glycerophosphoric acid, stearic and oleic acids, and a base which he identified with Baeyer's neurin and the neurin Obtained by Liebreich3 from his protagon by decomposition with barium hydrate. From the ease with which his lecithin could be Split up Diaconow con cluded that it was a neurin salt of distearyl glycerophosphoric acid. This View was, however, disproved by Hundeshagen4 on account of the fact that the body prepared by the union Of neurin and distearyl glycerophosphoric acid in alcohol solution would not give the characteristic myelin forms, although it possessed all the other properties of lecithin. Strecker5 brought confusion into this subject by identifying the base obtained by him from lecithin with the cholin he had isolated from bile.6 Thudichum7 pointed out the difference between the body derived from bile and the base isolated from lecithin, and identified the latter as neurin by a number of analyses made with carefully purified material. In the book above referred to Thudichum also records someother important Observations. Among the large number of compounds isolated by him from the brain there are some which do not contain glycerin; as he always finds phosphorus in the form Of orthophosphoric acid, he concludes to call these bodies Phosphatids and consider them rather as derivatives Of orthophosphoric acid than glycerophosphoric acid, as previously accepted. His formulas resemble the types of the T ypentheom'e of Gerhardt and Wurtz, in leaving the exact building up of the molecule a matter of doubt. From a Study of the fatty acids in his various compounds Thudichum concludes, contrary to Diaconow, that there are no phosphatids with only one fatty acid, but that each one contains either palmitic, stearic, or mar.

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