Conjugations of acrylonitrile and glycidonitrile with glutathione--a contribution to problems of metabolism of acrylonitrile.

The study of the conjugation of acrylonitrile and glycidonitrile with glutathione has demonstrated the capacity of glutathione of eliminating both acrylonitrile (manifesting mostly cyanide effects) and the primary product of its oxidative turnover, glycidonitrile (mutagenic effect), from acting toxicly. It appears, at the same time, however, that massive doses of acrylonitrile may endanger the biological system by depletion of large quantities of glutathione a schematic chart of the metabolic exchanges of acrylonitrile was suggested demonstrating that a part of the total amount of the excreted thiocyanate in the urine might also be accounted for by the cyanide having been produced by the enzymatically catalyzed conjugation of glycidonitrile with glutathione, with the ensuing secondary breakdown of the intermediary product cyanohydrin.