polyenes

The period was highlighted by structural and functional studies of molecules with characteristic double carbon bonds, called polyenes.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Lwoff became close friends with Edgar Lederer and was the original inspiration for Lederer's and Kuhn's studies of polyenes in invertebrates.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

The discovery in the late twenties that crocetin, which falls within the sub-group of polyenes called carotenoids, contains such bonds had piqued Kuhn's interest in this family of polyenes.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Kuhn's work with polyenes, flavins, vitamins, as well as cumulenes brought him broad recognition and opened the door to a surge of similar biochemical research throughout the world.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Kuhn's investigations of polyenes were exhaustive, including synthesis of over 300 new materials and the study of the natural formation of carotenoid carboxylic acids and related compounds.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Increasingly, however, his work began to reflect a deeply held interest in stereochemistry of plant pigments, especially polyenes.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Isolation, synthesis and structural work on polyenes, especially of the carotenoid family, dominated the early years of the Chemistry Institute.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

The chemical analysis of polyenes led Kuhn to his path breaking biochemical studies of vitamins in the 1930s.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

Like polyenes, the flavins were characterized by a series of conjugate double bonds, but this time with an attachment of nitrogen.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010

For example, while investigating how the chemical structure of the carotenoid pigments affects the determination of color, Kuhn showed how the backbone sequence of single and double-bound carbon atoms give the polyenes their light absorbing properties and how slight variations create important differences in frequencies of light that could be absorbed - i.e. the variant colors we observe.

Richard Kuhn and the Chemical Institute: Double Bonds and Biological Mechanisms 2010