The isolation of crystalline erythritol from normal human urine.

With the finding that xylitol is an intermediate in the glucuronate-xylulose pathway (2, 3)) experiments were undertaken to determine whether this pentitol occurs in human urine. Instead of xylitol, the analyses led to the isolation of n-arabitol from pentosuric urine as well as nL-arabitol from normal urine (4). During the fractionation of urinary polyols on Dowex l-borate columns, eluates were also found to contain a substance with the paper chromatographic behavior of a tetritol. Purification of these fractions yielded crystalline erythritol. This paper describes the procedures used in the isolation and identification of erythritol from the urine of two normal fasting men.