Inorganic Pyrophosphate in Insect Tissue

Abstract

As reported earlier by Heller¹, the fat bodies of the male of the butterflies Deilephila euphorbiœ contain, a substantial quantity, some 110 mgm. per cent, of phosphorus which yields inorganic orthophosphate on 7 minutes hydrolysis in N hydrochloric acid at 100° C. This readily hydrolysable phosphorus fraction, at first thought to consist chiefly of adenosinetriphosphate, was recently subjected by us to purification by the method of Jones² (as modified by Lehninger and Smith³), which consists in precipitation of inorganic pyrophosphate as manganese salt but leaves adenosinetriphosphate in solution.