Institute of Technical Biocatalysis, Technical University Hamburg-Harburg, 21073 Hamburg, Germany.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2010 Feb;85(5):1315-20. doi: 10.1007/s00253-009-2362-4. Epub 2009 Dec 2.
Pyrazines are a class of compounds that occur almost ubiquitously in nature. Pyrazines can be synthesised chemically or biologically, and are used as flavouring additives. The major formation of pyrazines occurs during heating of food. There is very little information available on the degradation of these compounds. In humans and animals, pyrazines are excreted as glucuronates or bound to glutathione via the kidney after hydroxylation, but the pyrazine ring is not cleaved. Bacteria have been isolated, which are able to use various substituted pyrazines as a sole carbon and energy source. In a few cases, the initial metabolites have been characterised; however, the mechanism of ring cleavage and the further degradation pathways are still unknown and await further investigation.
吡嗪类化合物是自然界中广泛存在的一类化合物。吡嗪类化合物可以通过化学或生物方法合成，并被用作调味添加剂。吡嗪类化合物主要在加热食物时形成。关于这些化合物的降解，目前的信息很少。在人和动物中，吡嗪类化合物在羟化后通过肾脏以葡萄糖醛酸盐或与谷胱甘肽结合的形式排泄，但吡嗪环不会被裂解。已经分离出一些细菌，它们能够将各种取代的吡嗪类化合物作为唯一的碳源和能源。在少数情况下，已经对初始代谢物进行了特征描述；然而，环裂解的机制和进一步的降解途径仍不清楚，有待进一步研究。
