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Biographical Memoirs Volume 61 (1992) / Chapter Skim
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Gerty Theresa Cori
Pages 110-135

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From page 110...
... I in, ~7
From page 111...
... its use in the elucidation of glycogen structure by serial enzymatic clegraclation. This pioneering work led to the eluciciation of the enzymatic defects in the glycogen storage diseases.
From page 112...
... Starvation and near starvation were wiclespread, and Gerty Cori developer! symptoms of xerophthalmia fortunately cured in time with an improved diet at her home in Prague.
From page 113...
... In Buffalo, the Coris' collaborative work rapidly became focused on carbohydrate metabolism in viva and its hormonal regulation. In orcler to attack questions quantitatively, they cleveloped careful methods for analyzing glucose, glycogen, lactic acid, ancT inorganic anti organic phosphate.
From page 114...
... This provided the motivation for cleveloping a procedure for analyzing hexose monophosphates, a rigorous method based on measuring both the reducing power and organic phosphate content of water-soluble barium salts precipitated with ethanol. The Coris performed both determinations in orcler to characterize the product more precisely.
From page 115...
... In Buffalo they tract shown conclusively that epinephrine administration increased hexose monophosphate in muscle in fifteen to sixty minutes, with a decrease to basal concentrations in four hours. Further, they hacI demonstrated a decrease in inorganic phosphate under these conditions ant!
From page 116...
... Glucose I-phosphate was first isolated from washed, minced frog muscle, incubated in inorganic phosphate buffer, in the presence of adenylic acid (19361. In the full publication of this work (1937)
From page 117...
... Of ten papers published during that period, Gerty Cori was first author on seven, Car] on two, and Sidney Colowick on one.
From page 118...
... By ammonium sulfate fractionation, phosphorylase was obtained free of mutase and phosphatase. This enzyme preparation catalyzed the formation of a polysaccharicle in the test tube, from glucose [L-phosphate, which stained brown with incline and was inclistinguishable from glycogen.
From page 119...
... Aclcle(1 glycogen abolished the lag period, anal, Gerty and Car} reasoned, "one may conclucle that this enzyme, which synthesizes a high molecular weight compound glycogen, requires the presence of a minute amount of this compound in order to start activity." Thus began the concept of glycogen synthesis upon a preexisting primer. Once again, the final publication by Gerty and Car!
From page 120...
... By precipitating the inorganic phosphate releasec! by phosphorylase as Ba3(PO412, they "pulled" the set of reactions mutase anti phosphorylase toward glycogen synthesis against the unfavorable mutase equilibrium.
From page 121...
... from muscle extracts d-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehycirogenase and, with John Taylor and Arcia Green, aldolase. While Carl, Earl Sutherland, and Theo Posternak pursued their interest in enzyme mechanisms (particularly study
From page 122...
... We had a small, precious sample, which we used as a stanclarct in a paper chromatographic analysis of the products of enzymatic clegradation of glycogen from crude or highly purified phosphorylase preparations. When the reaction mixtures were treated to remove the hexose phosphates, the analyses reveaTecl the presence of free glucose only, and no isomaltose was founcl.
From page 123...
... ~ next worked out the mechanism of the branching enzyme, while Gerty carried out independent studies on hexokinases with Milton Slein and with Severo Ochoa, Milton Slein, and Carl in 1951 on fructose phosphorylation and metabolism in liver. By far her greatest interest in her remaining years was the nature of the enzymatic defects in the glycogen storage diseases, a return, in a sense, to her original interest in pediatrics.
From page 124...
... Gerty became very excited, recognizing that with an abnormal glycogen structure, glycogen storage was a molecular disease. (The only example of a molecular disease known at that time was Pauling's sickle-cell hemoglobin.)
From page 125...
... Her last published work, in 1957, was a review on the glycogen storage diseases. Gerty was a tireless scientific worker and an avid reader.
From page 126...
... . biochemistry, in which I have been intensely interested ever since I got a first glimpse of it as a medical student in 1914.
From page 127...
... 2. Gerty Cori submitted this short statement of her personal philosophy to the National Academy of Sciences in 1954.
From page 128...
... Louis, Missouri 1947-57 Professor of biochemistry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri HONORS 1946 Midwest Award of the American Chemical Society 1947 Squibb Award of the Association for the Study of Internal Secretion 1947 With C
From page 129...
... Der Einfluss der Lebergefasse auf den Wasserhaushalb und die hamoklasische Krise.
From page 130...
... VI. Sugar oxidation and glycogen formation in normal and insulinized rats during absorption of fructose.
From page 131...
... Cori. A method for the determination of hexose monophosphate in muscle.
From page 132...
... Cori. Fate of hexose monophosphate during aerobic recovery of frog muscle.
From page 133...
... Constitution of the polysaccharide synthesized by the action of crystalline muscle phosphorylase.
From page 134...
... Cori. Crystalline d-glyceraldehyde-3phosphate dehydrogenase from rabbit muscle.
From page 135...
... Glycogen storage disease of the liver.


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