L L-Carnitine (vitamin B T ) plays a vital role in the transportation of long-chain fatty acids into mitochondrial matrix in mammals. L L-Carnitine has a wide range of applications in pharmaceuticals, food products, and feed additives. Due to the increasing demand for L L-carnitine in food and pharmaceutical applications, production of this compound has become prominent. However, very little has been reported on the production of L L-carnitine. This review discusses the microbial and the enzymatic production of L L-carnitine from different starting materials (substrates).

We have developed a system in which the fusion of pancreatic plasma membranes with zymogen granules can be studied in vitro. We show here that pancreatic plasma membranes fuse not only with pancreatic zymogen granules but also with parotid secretory granules. In contrast, parotid membranes fuse only with parotid granules and not with pancreatic granules. The extent of fusion is insensitive to Ca2+ for all combinations of plasma membranes and granules. Guanosine 5'-[gamma-thio]triphosphate (GTP[S]), on the other hand, stimulates fusion of pancreatic membranes with both pancreatic granules and parotid granules, but inhibits fusion between parotid membranes and parotid granules.