α-Diazo arylketones are well-known substrates for Wolff rearrangement to phenylacetic acids through a ketene intermediate by either thermal or photochemical activation. Likewise, α-substituted p-hydroxyphenacyl (pHP) esters are substrates for photo-Favorskii rearrangements to phenylacetic acids by a different pathway that purportedly involves a cyclopropanone intermediate. In this paper, we sho...

During a continuing search for antimicrobial substances from Korean native wild mushroom extracts, we found that the methanolic extract of the fruiting body of Clitocybe nebularis exhibited mild antifungal activity against pathogenic fungi. Therefore we evaluated the antifungal substances and other chemical components of the fruiting body of Clitocybe nebularis, which led to the isolation of ne...

In a group of six Parkinsonian patients and 13 "controls" with non-Parkinsonian neurological disease, there was a high correlation between both free and conjugated phenylacetic acid concentrations in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid taken at about the same time. This compound is the major metabolite of phenylethylamine, the production of which may be disturbed in a number of neuropsychiatric illn...

We have recently seen a baby girl with gross mental deficiency who had repeated attacks of generalized oedema. She also had an extremely unpleasant, pungent smell due to the presence in her urine of a substance derived from ox-hydroxy-butyric acid. So far as we know, this acid has not previously been detected in human urine. The urine also contained phenylpyruvic acid and phenylacetic acid as w...

Fourteen different genes included in a DNA fragment of 18 kb are involved in the aerobic degradation of phenylacetic acid by Pseudomonas putida U. This catabolic pathway appears to be organized in three contiguous operons that contain the following functional units: (i) a transport system, (ii) a phenylacetic acid activating enzyme, (iii) a ring-hydroxylation complex, (iv) a ring-opening protei...

We have recently seen a baby girl with gross mental deficiency who had repeated attacks of generalized oedema. She also had an extremely unpleasant, pungent smell due to the presence in her urine of a substance derived from ox-hydroxy-butyric acid. So far as we know, this acid has not previously been detected in human urine. The urine also contained phenylpyruvic acid and phenylacetic acid as w...