Acetone Metabolism 243 



sidered to be more typical of liver than other organs and may 

 not necessarily reflect, the metabolism of the latter. Evidence 

 indicating that propanediol may be an intermediate of acetone 

 metabolism is reviewed. 



Further indication of the role of formaldehyde in meta- 

 bolism is drawn from the experiments with propionic acid 

 bacteria. These bacteria apparently convert the terminal 

 carbon of glycerol to free formaldehyde. Furthermore, they 

 appear to utilize formaldehyde very extensively in the syn- 

 thesis of propionic acid, the formaldehyde carbon being 

 incorporated in every position of the molecule. It seems quite 

 certain that, in addition to utilization of COo, there is exten- 

 sive utilization of other C^-compounds in metabolism. The 

 understanding of how these Ci-compounds are utilized will 

 no doubt lead to new important concepts of the mechanism 

 of metabolism. 



The author wishes to express his sincere thanks to Dr. 

 Warwick Sakami, to Mr. Harry Rudney and Mr. Fred Leaver 

 for permitting him to use unpublished data that they have 

 obtained and for their many valuable comments. 



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