Studies on Folic Acid and Folinic Acid of Fishes

1. The total amount of folic acid (FA) and folinic acid (CF) in fish muscle was found to vary from species to species, for example, from 69mγ/gm with white muscle of Seriola purpurascens to 682mγ/gm with red muscle of Cypsilurus agoo (See Table 2). 2. With intestines of Katsuwonus vagans and Scomber tapeinocephalus it was found that the liberation of FA from its conjugated form, presumably through autolysis, is conducted most actively in liver and pyloric coeca, but even in these organs the measured activity does not exceed about 60% of the conjugase activity in hog kidney and chick pancreas. There was found also a parallelism to hold between the total amount of FA and CF and the activity of organs in liberating these acids. 3. As regards FA content, liver proved to be at the top of the intestines analyzed, while content of CF attained to a maximum with pyloric coeca. The sum of FA and CF contents was roughly equal between the two organs, being 3 times as high as that in other organs (See Table 3).