Properties of catalase. Catalysis of coupled oxidation of alcohols.

e.g. uricase and d-amino-acid oxidase and their respective substrates, in other words systems which react directly with molecular 02 and reduce it to H202. The increased 02 uptake was shown to be due to the secondary oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde by H202 formed in the primary oxidation reaction. It was a matter for some surprise to find that this secondary oxidation of ethanol took place only in presence of catalase, which catalyzes this reaction instead of preventing it by the usual catalatic decomposition of H202 into 02 and water. Since H202 formed in the primary oxidation reaction could be replaced by barium or cerium peroxide, but not by a solution of free H202, it appeared that the H202 oxidizing ethanol was in a 'nascent state'. In this paper we propose to deal with three aspects of this reaction: (1) the catalysis of the reaction by