Abstract
IT has been demonstrated that the enzymatic conversion of dihydrofolic acid to tetrahydrofolic acid plays an important part in various biochemical reactions1–3. It has also been suggested that 7,8-dihydropteridine is reduced to the tetrahydro-level by the enzyme extracted from sheep liver in the presence of reduced triphosphopyridine nucleotide4. Recently, the yellow pigment (sepiapterin5) of Drosophila has been confirmed to be 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-lactyl-7,8-dihydropteridine6. It was therefore thought that the yellow pigment of Drosophila might be also converted to tetrahydropteridine by the enzyme extracted from liver.
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TAIRA, T. Enzymatic Reduction of the Yellow Pigment of Drosophila. Nature 189, 231–232 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/189231a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/189231a0
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