Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Mar 30.
Published in final edited form as: Aquat Toxicol. 2011 May 13;105(0):29–40. doi: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2011.05.006

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Oxidation of MTBE to known vertebrate metabolites. In mammals, MTBE is oxidized by CYP 2A6 and 3A4 to TBA and formaldehyde (Hong et al., 1999; Le Gal et al., 2001). Primary metabolites (bold faced) can be excreted or undergo further oxidation. The enzymes that oxidize TBA to 2-methyl-1,2-propanediol to α-hydroxyisobutyric acid are unknown. Formaldehyde is oxidized to methanol by alcohol dehydrogenase or to formic acid by aldehyde dehydrogenase. Based on Amberg et al. (2001) and Du et al. (2005).