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For laboratory research use only. Not for human or veterinary use.
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Tripeptide thiol
Also catalogued as GSH, Glutathione (reduced), γ-L-Glutamyl-L-cysteinylglycine.
Three residues — glutamate, cysteine, glycine — but no one-letter sequence is given, because the first linkage is not an ordinary peptide bond. Glutamate joins cysteine through its side-chain γ-carboxyl rather than its α-carboxyl, which is what the name γ-L-glutamyl-L-cysteinylglycine records and what makes the molecule resistant to the peptidases that would otherwise cleave it.
L-Glutathione is a tripeptide of glutamate, cysteine and glycine, found in plant and animal cells. Its defining structural feature is the γ-glutamyl linkage at the N-terminal end: the glutamate side chain, not its α-carboxyl, forms the bond to cysteine. The cysteine thiol is free in the reduced form, and two molecules join through that thiol to form the oxidised disulfide dimer.
The compound was isolated by Frederick Gowland Hopkins and described in 1921. Material supplied for laboratory work is normally produced by fermentation or by synthesis rather than extracted.
L-Glutathione occurs naturally and is sold as a laboratory chemical. Material supplied under this listing is not an approved drug in any jurisdiction and carries no pharmacopoeial certification.
Hopkins FG On an Autoxidisable Constituent of the Cell. Biochemical Journal 1921;15(2):286–305.
Citation titles are reproduced verbatim from the journal record. A citation documents the molecule's published identity and history; it is not a claim about the material sold here.