Biochemistry of Amino Acids - A. Maister 1961

Disorders of Amino Acid Metabolism in Certain Pathological States
Phenylalanine and Tyrosine Metabolism

"...the anomalies which I am about to discuss... may be classed among inborn errors of METABOLISM. Some of them are certainly, and a larger number are probably, fraught with consequence even at birth... They are characterized by a considerable departure from the normal standard of the species, far transcending ordinary individual variations; one is led to think of them as metabolic 'freaks', so to speak, representing the chemical equivalent of structural malformations... It is quite possible that the intermediate products formed at various stages [of metabolism] as such exist only momentarily, undergoing further changes almost immediately after their formation, and that the course of metabolic processes along any specific pathway should be conceived as a continuous movement rather than as a series of discrete steps. If any link in the chain of processes fails, the intermediate product, having reached that point, undergoes no further transformation, just as when a cinematograph film stops, the moving figures are arrested with a FOOT uplifted" (Garrod, 1923).



Last update: 06/08/2026

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