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American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 3, 305-310, Copyright © 1955 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.
1 From The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York
To come back now from the realm of hypothesis, let us remember that a compound of chemical structure related to methionine occurs naturally as the toxin of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas tabaci. This toxin, which has been isolated in pure form and identified, reproduces the lesions of the disease. The same lesions can be caused by a synthetic antimetabolite of methionine. In the unicellular plant Chlorella vulgaris, the poisonous action of the Pseudomonas toxin can be overcome in a competitive fashion by methionine, and by no other known substance. For these reasons it seems rather clear that the Pseudomonas toxin probably owes much of its disease-producing properties to the fact that it is a naturally occurring antimetabolite of methionine.
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