Evidence for telluroamino acid in biological materials and some rules of assimilation of inorganic tellurium by yeast.

A natural substance, telluroamino acid, was discovered in tellurium yeast by GC and GC/MS. This substance was obtained for the first time by means of the assimilation of inorganic tellurium by yeast, having 600 ppm of total Te and 150 ppm of telluroamino acid. Some rules for such an assimilation were found: the content of total Te and telluroamino acid in tellurium-yeast is closely related to the kind of culture media used and is proportional to the concentration of Te in culture media. This discovery is of theoretical and practical significance, especially for the production by a simpler microbiological synthesis of rare and expensive organic tellurium compounds which hopefully will prove to be anticarcinogens like the selenium-yeast, and for explaining the biochemical effect of tellurium on the human body.