SESSION II. DISCUSSION 185 



temperature of the surrounding medium. It has already been shown that some complex 

 compounds of mineral nature have an activating effect similar to that of enzymes. 



To supplement this generally known fact I may add a more concrete example which 

 has not yet been published, I am referring to complex compounds of Fe^ with 

 pyrophosphates . 



As concerns pyrophosphates, much has been said about their application to the 

 synthesis of enzymic proteins and nucleoproteins. It seems to me that the possible uses 

 of pyrophosphate residues are far from being exhausted by the studies mentioned. 



In the first place, there is no acidic residue which gives rise to such a multiplicity of 

 complex compounds as P2O7*" which, even under conditions which are almost like those 

 in nature, will mask the specific properties of about 15 cations. In doing so the reaction 

 with each cation is 'multivariant' with the simultaneous separation of mixtures of reaction 

 products. This fact reminds one of the biochemical process which Prof. Gol'dovskiï 

 found to be multivariant. 



The nature of the reaction products is reminiscent of some organic substances. For 

 example, the pyrophosphate complexes of Fe^ which I have isolated have the general 

 properties of organic substances. One of them is very viscous and, when dried in a thin 

 layer, it reminds one of gelatin; it swells on wetting. Another substance occurs in the 

 form of glistening colourless crystals which refract light strongly. In my work, which is 

 still not complete, I demonstrate the similarity between these mineral complexes and 

 organic materials. 



In this present communication I want to speak about the possibility that mineral 

 complex compounds may have taken part in the production of compUcated organic 

 compounds. It is a perfectly admissible idea that mineral complex compounds were 

 probably formed before organic ones for, in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics 

 and electrostatics, they could come into being directly from those materials which were 

 available on the Earth and in its atmosphere at the time, while complicated organic 

 compounds were probably formed on the basis of these complex compounds with the 

 participation of hydrocarbons, the radicals of organic acids, carbon dioxide and ammonia. 



A. A. GuRViCH (U.S.S.R.): 



I work on the problem of mitogenetic radiations and shall, therefore, allow myself to 

 make some observations in cormection with Dr Bahadur's very interesting paper. 



It seems to me that the facts set out by Dr Bahadur in the first part of his paper, to 

 show the possibility that when solutions of simple compounds of carbon and nitrogen are 

 activated by Ught a whole series of amino acids may be formed, are of great theoretical 

 interest. 



Dr Bahadur's suggestion that mitogenetic radiation develops when this occurs and that 

 the actual process takes place by means of free radicals seems very probable and the 

 application of mitogenetic spectral analysis, which both we and he have already 

 considered, might turn this probability into fact, for, owing to the great sensitivity of the 

 mitogenetic method, the detection of small concentrations of compounds which disappear 

 quickly is perfectly possible. 



In cormection with mitogenetic radiations, Dr Bahadur recalled the process of auto- 

 synthesis of the active groups of enzymes at the expense of simple amino acids. This 

 phenomenon, which was noticed long ago in our laboratory, has been studied for many 

 years, and it has been established that the power of autosynthesis, or autocatalysis as we 

 call it, is also possessed by comparatively simple organic compounds containing cyclic 

 groupings, for example tyrosine in a solution of glycine. 



As Dr Bahadur said, the necessary energetic factor is provided by the mitogenetic 

 radiations developing in the system during the formation of the cyclic compound. This 

 latter behaves like a very small hole, serving as a matrix, similar to the radicals into which 

 the radicals of glycine are split and which form the new cyclical systems. 



The radicals were discovered by mitogenetic spectral analysis. The process of auto- 

 catalysis of tyrosine itself has also been confirmed by a number of other methods. 



I was greatly interested by Dr Bahadur's ideas given in the second part of his paper, 

 though I must emphasize that both earUer and now, in our experimental work and in our 

 analysis of the data, we are far from having reached ideas of such a general nature. 



