ABSTRACT
Nitrogen compounds are ubiquitous in the diet and the environment and among xenobiotics. Elsewhere in this section there are chapters on the role of ammonia metabolism in nitrogen conservation, the pharmacology of dietary nitrate and the formation of N-nitroso compounds. In this chapter the topics to be reviewed are azo reductase, nitro reductase, amino acid decarboxylase, amino acid deaminase and the metabolism of some specific amino acids. The major initial bacterial metabolites produced from amino acids in the mammalian colon are the results of decarboxylation and deamination (Barker, 1981).
