Abstract

PIP: Chemical reactivity of metallic copper in a model system containing biological metabolites is described. Methionine, methional, and propanal produced ethylene when exposed to metallic copper in the presence of oxygen. It may be that metallic copper in this system serves as the ''1 electron reducing agent'' in the proposed chemical model system (Kumamoto et al). The requirement for oxygen was verified by removing this electron acceptor and observing the reduced ethylene production. Preliminary studies have shown that other reaction products of the reaction of copper metal with methionine include dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide or methyl mercaptan or both. These data further suggest that these chemicals are liberated from methionine when copper comes in contact with methionine-containing biological fluids.