Hydrolysis of Conjugated Folic Acid by Pancreatic ‘Conjugase’

Abstract

The present studies have shown that rat pancreatic juice is rich in conjugase, an enzyme which hydrolyzes the gamma-glutamyl peptide linkage in conjugated folic acid (pteroyl polyglutamate).

With pteroylpolyglutamate isolated from yeast as substrate, the products after hydrolysis are found to be pteroylmonoglutamate and an at present unknown product in equal amounts. The pH-optimum is found to be in the range of 5.5 to 6.0.

Preliminary estimation of the molecular weight gives a value of 60,000 for conjugase from rat pancreatic juice and 52,000 for conjugase from chicken pancreas.

Key-words:

• Pancreatic folic acid conjugase