Carboxy Alkyl Cysteines

Abstract

A. S-Alkyl substituted cysteines and their sulphoxides (I) Structure These compounds comprise a large number of cysteine derivatives in which the thiol hydrogen is replaced by various aliphatic residues. The basic structure is R - S - CH2-CH.(NH2).COOH where R represents the aliphatic residue, which may range in size from methyl to 2-carboxy-1,1-dimethylethyl. The corresponding sulphoxides of the structurally simpler compound are also known to occur naturally, an example of these being S-methyl-L-cysteine.