Biochemistry - The Chemical Reactions of Living Cells, Volume 2 - D. Metzler 1980

Coenzymes - specialized natural reagents
Thiamine diphosphate
The role of thiamine coenzymes in nerve cell function

The fact that severe paralysis develops during thiamine deficiency, on the one hand, and the results obtained from studying thiamine analogues, on the other, led to the hypothesis that thiamine plays a specific function in Neurons [18a]. It is believed that Thiamine diphosphate (or possibly thiamine triphosphate) plays an important role in the sodium transport system across the neuronal membrane [20, 30]. The validity of this concept is supported by the fact that the thiamine analogue pyrithiamine displaces thiamine from nerve Cell preparations. The potent neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (Fig. 16-7) not only blocks neuronal conduction by suppressing sodium ion diffusion into the nerve cell, but also accelerates the release of thiamine from nerve cell membranes. The crucial role of thiamine triphosphate in METABOLISM is indicated by the fact that soluble and membrane-bound thiamine triphosphatases have been discovered in the rat Brain [31, 32].



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