One More for the Road

OK, between my last post and that B.R.S.M. post, we've covered soda, wine, beer, carrots, salmon sperm, bone meal, coffee, and whiskey. If you include his comments, we can toss wool, almond meal, clay, and urine into the mix. But a recent J. Med. Chem. abstract may take the cake for me...

Poop.

Yup, here's the abstract, graphic and everything:

Source: J. Med. Chem. 2012, ASAP

What's the cecum, you ask? Great question! It's a "pocket" of large intestine, immediately following the small intestine and just before the colon. Apparently, it's renowned for two things: a high level of gut flora, and an anaerobic environment. When metabolism / fate scientists want to see what happens to an intestinal prodrug, this model comes into play.

Here's the prep, "fresh" from the Supporting Information:

"A solution of phosphate buffer (50 mM, pH 6.8) was prepared and deoxygenated by bubbling nitrogen for ten minutes. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were sacrificed and the cecum was exposed. The cecal contents were removed and used to make a 10% w/v suspension in the oxygen free buffer."

The microbe-rich slurry, after incubation with the compound at 37 degrees C with exclusion of oxygen, reduces down disulfide bonds, azo groups, even nitro aromatics to the parent anilines in "just a few hours."

Dunno about you, but I still think I prefer ol' Zn / AcOH. Probably smells a bit better, anyway.