Spermine is a polyamine involved in cellular metabolism found in all eukaryotic cells. Formed from spermidine, it is found in a wide variety of organisms and tissues and is an essential growth factor in some bacteria. It is found as a polycation at all pH values. Spermine is associated with nucleic acids and is thought to stabilize helical structure, particularly in viruses.

Crystals of spermine phosphate were first described in 1678, in human semen, by Anton van Leeuwenhoek. The name spermin ^* was first used by the German chemists Ladenburg and Abel in 1888, and the correct structure of spermine was not finally established until 1926, simultaneously in England (by Dudley, Rosenheim, and Starling) and Germany (by Wrede. et al).

References

Notes

1. Leeuwenhoek, A. van (1678) Observationes D. Anthonii Leeuwenhoek, de natis e semine genitali animalculis. Letter dated November 1677. Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 12,1040-1043.
2. Ladenburg A., Abel J. (1888) Über das Aethylenimin (Spermin?). Ber. Dtsch. chem. Ges. 21: 758-766
3. Dudley H. W., Rosenheim O., Starling W. W. (1926) The chemical constitution of spermine. III.Structure and synthesis. Biochem. J. 20: 1082-1094 ^*
4. Wrede F. (1925) Über die aus menschlichem Sperma isolierte Base Spermin. Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. 51: 24

General references

• Slocum, R. D., Flores, H. E., "Biochemistry and Physiology of Polyamines in Plants", CRC Press, 1991, USA, ISBN 0849368650
• Uriel Bachrach, "The Physiology of Polyamines", CRC Press, 1989, USA, ISBN 0849368081

See also

• spermidine
• putrescine
• cadaverine

Polyamines

Spermina | スペルミン | Spermina | spermin