BIOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF PHYLOGENY 



125 



chromatograms of muscle extracts from Arenicola marina and 

 Nereis dtiersicolor in either pyricline-water or propanol-acetic- 

 water and developing the chromatograms in a-naphthol hypo- 

 bromite which gives a coloured spot with guanidines. They 

 found that in Arenicola there was the compound taurocyamine 

 phosphate whilst in Nereis there was glycocyamine phosphate. 



NH, 



NH< 



HN = C 



NH 



NH.CH 2 .S0 3 H 



Taurocyamine 



NH.CH 2 .COOH 



Glycocyamine 



NH— PO(OH) 2 



NH— PO(OH), 



HN 



HN = C 



NH.CH 2 .S0 3 H 



Taurocyamine phosphate 



NH.CH 2 .COOH 



Glycocyamine 

 phosphate 



The relationship of these compounds to the other phosphagens 

 was not as obscure as might be supposed on first sight. Thus van 

 Thoai and Robin (1951) had shown that an enzyme capable of 

 methylating various compounds had quite a wide distribution in 

 the invertebrates and that it was quite possible that this might 

 methylate glycocyamine to form creatine. 



It is probable that glycocyamine phosphate (GP) and tauro- 

 cyamine phosphate (TP) play a similar role in the body to AP 

 and CP since there are enzymes that can phosphorylate G and T. 

 Thus Hobson and Rees (1957) showed that specific phosphokinases 

 were present in various annelids. The unphosphorylated base was 

 added to the muscle extract, inorganic phosphate and the appro- 

 priate buffer. This was then incubated at 40 °C for 15 min and 

 the phosphagens formed isolated and tested. The results are 

 shown in the following table. 



