Allantoic acid is an organic compound with the

chemical formula In chemistry, a chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, ...

C₄H₈N₄O₄. It is a crystalline acid obtained by

hydrolysis Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution reaction, substitution, elimination reaction, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water ...

of allantoin. In nature, allantoic acid is produced from allantoin by the enzyme

allantoinase In enzymology, an allantoinase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction :(S)-allantoin + H2O \rightleftharpoons allantoate Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are (S)-allantoin and H2O, whereas its product is allantoate. Th ...

(encoded by the

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

AllB ( Uniprot
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in ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

'' and other

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

References

Ureas Acetic acids {{organic-compound-stub