The distribution of cholinesterase types in mammalian tissues

Abstract

Much work has been carried out in recent years in order to characterize more fully the mammalian cholinesterases, but, with certain exceptions referred to below, this has been largely limited to a study of these enzymes in brain, red blood cells and plasma. This work has amply demonstrated that fundamental differences in specificity and in reaction kinetics exist between the cholinesterases present in these three tissues (Alles & Hawes, 1940; Glick, 1941; Richter & Croft, 1942; Bissegger & Zeller, 1943), and Mendel and his colleagues have described 'true' and 'pseudo' cholinesterases which hydrolyse respec-