Abstract
RECENT studies have discovered the fact that a number of classes of physiologically active compounds (for example, the carcinogens, the sterols and bile acids, the sex hormones, the heart poisons) have all a similar framework1. Two questions then arise. (1) What is the significance of this similarity of structure? (2) Why do these compounds which have certain similarities of structure possess physiological properties so different as those, for example, of the sex hormones and the cardiac poisons? In answer to these questions we suggest that for certain types of interaction with the organism it is necessary (though not sufficient) that a molecule possess an affinity for, in the sense of superposability on, some ‘substrate’ in the organism. This suggestion, which simply gives precise expression to an idea long since well established in physiological chemistry2, accounts for the similarity of framework. The particular nature of the interaction may then be attributed to the degree of unsaturation (compare specially the carcinogenic hydrocarbons and cholesterol), to the occurrence of a lactone ring and to the occurrence and particular distribution of carbonyl, hydroxyl and methyl groups in the compounds in question.
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Wrinch, D. Structure of Proteins and of Certain Physiologically Active Compounds. Nature 138, 651–652 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138651a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138651a0
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