Kinetic study of the reaction of acetoacetate with glycine and sodium nitroprusside

This paper describes an extensive kinetic study of the reactions involved in the determination of acetoacetate in body fluids. It is concluded that acetoacetate reacts with glycine to produce an imine intermediate that tautomerizes to an enamine. It is also concluded that nitroprusside reacts with the imine intermediate to produce an unstable product with an absorption maximum near 540 nm. This product decays slowly to produce a stable product with an absorption maximum near 393 nm. A proposed reaction pathway is used to develop kinetic equations, rate constants, equilibrium constants, and molar absorptivity of the unstable product that permit quantitative prediction of the kinetic behavior for a wide range of reactant concentrations.