Bongkrek acid (also known as bongkrekic acid) is a

respiratory The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies gre ...

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. Toxins occur especially as a protein or conjugated protein. The term toxin was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849 ...

produced in

fermented Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food p ...

coconut or corn contaminated by the

bacterium 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 amon ...

''Burkholderia gladioli'' pathovar ''cocovenenans''. It is highly toxic because the compound inhibits the ADP/ATP translocase, also called the mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier, preventing ATP from leaving the mitochondria to provide metabolic energy to the rest of the cell. The structure of bongkrekic acid bound to ADP/ATP translocase was solved in 2019, demonstrating that it binds to the substrate binding site, preventing ATP in the mitochondrial matrix from binding. It has been implicated in deaths resulting from eating the coconut-based product known as tempe bongkrèk, which is banned in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It was also responsible for 75 deaths and over 200 hospitalizations due to contaminated beer in a Mozambique funeral. In October 2020, nine members of a family in China died after eating corn noodles contaminated with the acid.{{cite news , last1=Majumder , first1=Bhaswati Guha , title=Deadly Breakfast: 9 Family Members Die After Eating Homemade Noodles in China , url=https://www.ibtimes.sg/deadly-breakfast-9-family-members-die-after-eating-homemade-noodles-china-52670 , access-date=24 October 2020 , work=www.ibtimes.sg , date=20 October 2020 , language=en , archive-date=24 October 2020 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024183248/https://www.ibtimes.sg/deadly-breakfast-9-family-members-die-after-eating-homemade-noodles-china-52670 , url-status=live

References

Toxicology Carboxylic acids Alkene derivatives Ethers ADP/ATP translocase inhibitors Bacterial toxins