The role of biotin and adenylic acid in amino acid deaminases.

Within the past year the mode of action of biotin has become increasingly clarified. The relation of this vitamin to oxalacetic acid decarboxylation was discovered independently in at least four laboratories (l-l), while its apparent role in the synthesis of oleic acid has been suggested by Williams et al. (5) and Snell et al. (6). Biotin has further been shown to activate the deamination of aspartic acid, serine, and threonine (7). This paper is concerned with biotin activation of the deaminases.