PROTEINS 173 



violet light, the methyl alcohol was oxidized to formaldehyde at 

 the expense of oxygen from the nitrite, which (as hyponitrite) then 

 reacted with the formaldehyde to produce the potassium salt of 

 formhydroxamic acid. This reaction is purely photochemical 

 and cannot be made to take place in the dark even by boiling: 



KN0 2 +CH 3 OH = KNO+HCHO+H 2 



KNO+HCHO = H.CNOK.OH. 



Baly and others (1922) have confirmed these results and have 

 found that similar results may be obtained starting with nitrates 

 and carbon dioxide. Under the action of the ultra-violet light the 

 carbonic acid is transformed into activated formaldehyde which 

 results in the potassium formhydroxamate as found by Baudisch. 

 This potassium salt is hydrolyzed to the free acid H — C=NOH 



OH 



and then reduced to H — C=NH. This compound, they believe, 



OH 



then condenses with more of the formaldehyde to form a labile ring 

 compound 



OH OH 



H— C C— H 



\ / 

 NH 



which is rearranged to form glycine CH 2 NH 2 COOH, a simple 

 alpha amino acid. These amino acids may then be built up into 

 proteins according to Shibata (1926) as follows: 



H 2 C COOH ^ H 2 C CO 



/ / \ 



H 2 N + NH 2 =HN NH+2H 2 0. 



/ \ / 



HOOC CH 2 OC CH 2 



2 amino acids = glycine anhydride +water 



Further condensations result in the complex proteins found in 

 the plant. 



It is to be noted that these authors conclude that (1) protein 



