Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

by Nick Lane

The key method that Warburg had pioneered was to measure the escape of gases from thin slices of tissue, cut using a razor blade. When practised skilfully, the slice was thin enough for oxygen to penetrate fully by diffusion, while the cells in the centre of the slice were undamaged, functioning more or less normally. The slices were then placed in a solution with a similar composition to blood plasma, in a glass flask joined to a manometer (which measures gas pressure like a barometer) and sealed tight. Under these conditions, gases could bubble out of the tissue slice, which would increase the pressure inside the manometer and alter the height of liquid in a U-tube.

But for the most part the Cheshire Cat grin says it all: carboxylate groups are as lazy as fat cats, and prefer not to react at all. Overall, pyruvate is quite a complex composite character – a stout, mad-eyed pirate with a smug grin. Pyruvate the pirate.

The fate of pyruvate Having now familiarised ourselves with the nature of carboxylic acids, let’s return to Krebs, who was wrestling with their fate. We’ve seen that pyruvate itself plays a central role in respiration, yet Krebs knew that other carboxylic acids were involved too. The strange thing was that virtually all of them had more carbons than pyruvate, between four and six carbon atoms in length, compared to just three carbons in pyruvate.