168 J. AWAPARA 
this animal gave rise to a series of #°S-labeled intermediates which were separated by 
chromatography in ion-exchange columns, and identified. The metabolism of methio- 
nine and cysteine in A. cristata is the same, at least qualitatively, as in the mammal: 
methionine — homocysteine —> cysteine — cysteine sulfinic acid — taurine and/or 
sulfate. The formation of taurocyamine could be shown 7m vivo but only when large 
amounts of very radioactive taurine were administered ; it was separated by chromatog- 
raphy in ion-exchange resins as shown in Fig. 3, where the curve representing tauro- 
120,30 
RADIOACTIVITY © 
# moles e 
100 

@ 
(2) 
1) 
fo} 
Counts /minute /m| 
# moles taurocyamine/ml 
20 30 40 50 60 70 
FRACTION NUMBER 
Big: 3 
cyamine concentration measured colorimetrically overlaps the curve obtained by 
plotting values for radioactivity. A transamidination reaction with taurine as the 
acceptor could not be shown with a number of preparations from the lugworm. N- 
phosphoryl-taurocyamine is formed bya transphosphorylation from ATP and catalyzed 
by the enzyme taurocyamine phosphoryl transferase*!. 
Other taurine derivatives 
In addition to taurocyamine and asterubin, a new taurine derivative has been reported 
by ACKERMANN®, namely taurobetaine. The compound was obtained from a giant 
siliceous sponge found along the coast of Greece. This is the first time that such a 
derivative of taurine has been reported to exist in nature. Two other N-methylated 
taurines have been reported previously but not in animals. Mono- and dimethyl- 
taurine have been obtained from red algae**, 44, This observation is interesting be- 
cause it shows that taurine is not only widely distributed but it participates in a 
number of reactions, if we assume that all three methylated taurines are formed by 
a methylation reaction similar to that observed in mammals. No role has been assigned 
to monomethyltaurine, dimethyltaurine or taurobetaine. Since we have shown 
already that methionine is demethylated by some invertebrates it would be very 
interesting to study transmethylation in these organisms in which methylated deriva- 
tives appear. 
References p. 174/175 
