BASES DERIVED FROM THE PROTEINS 225 



physiol. Chem. 1889, 13, 562), Winterstein and ThOny found them 

 in cheese and Rielander obtained them from fresh ergot. 



The manner in which putrescine and cadaverine are formed 

 was first established by Ellinger {Zeitsch. physiol. Chem. 1900, 

 29, 334), who showed that the former is the product of the 

 action of putrefactive bacteria on ornithine or a-S-diamino- 

 valeric acid, NH 2 . CH 2 . CH 2 . CH 2 . CH(NH 2 ) . COOH, the latter 

 being derived in the same way from a-e-diamino-caproic acid 

 or lysine. Ellinger thus supplied the first definite examples 

 of the decarboxylation of amino-acids during putrefaction. 



Lysine is a diamino-acid formed on hydrolysis of proteins 

 by acids ; ornithine is formed by the further degradation of 

 another protein fission product, arginine, which is therefore 

 also to be regarded as a precursor of putrescine, 



NH 2 . C^-NH . CH, . CH 2 . CH 2 . CH(NH 2 ) . COOH -> 



Arginine 



NH,.CH 2 .CH, CH,CH(NH 2 )COOH 



Ornithine 



It is of some interest that a base has been obtained recently 

 formed directly from arginine by decarboxylation : this is 

 guanidylbutylamine or agmatine, 



NH 2 . C(: NH) . NH . CH 2 . CH,, . CH 2 . CH 2 . NH 2 , 



found by Kossel {Zeitsch. physiol. Chem. 19 10, 66, 257) in herring 

 roe, from which much arginine is obtained on hydrolysis. More 

 recently Kutscher and Engeland (Zentr. Physiol. 1910, 24, 479) 

 have obtained the base from ergot. Agmatine has not yet been 

 found as a product of putrefaction ; probably it is broken down 

 further into putrescine. It has but little physiological activity. 



Benzenoid Amines derived from Amino-Acids. — The physio- 

 logical activity of the fatty amines which have been described 

 above is comparatively slight ; a great increase in activity 

 attends the introduction of certain rings or ring systems into 

 the molecule. Ring structure in itself is not necessarily very 

 effective : for example, cyclohexylamine, 



cH *<cS;-cS;> CH - NH * 



has a pressor action which is quantitatively very similar to that 

 of the open-chain hexylamine ; on the other hand, the presence 

 of a benzenoid group in the side chain is productive of more 



15 



