Dimethylamine (CHEM003108)

Dimethylamine is a uremic toxin. Uremic toxins can be subdivided into three major groups based upon their chemical and physical characteristics: 1) small, water-soluble, non-protein-bound compounds, such as urea; 2) small, lipid-soluble and/or protein-bound compounds, such as the phenols and 3) larger so-called middle-molecules, such as beta2-microglobulin. Chronic exposure of uremic toxins can lead to a number of conditions including renal damage, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. Dimethylamine (DMA) is an organic secondary amine. It is a colorless, liquefied and flammable gas with an ammonia and fish-like odor. Dimethylamine is abundantly present in human urine. Main sources of urinary DMA have been reported to include trimethylamine N-oxide, a common food component, and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), an endogenous inhibitor of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis. ADMA is excreted in the urine in part unmetabolized and in part after hydrolysis to DMA by dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH). Statistically significant increases in urinary DMA have been found in individuals after the consumption of fish and seafoods. The highest values were obtained for individuals that consumed coley, squid and whiting with cod, haddock, sardine, skate and swordfish As a pure chemical substance Dimethylamine is used as dehairing agent in tanning, in dyes, in rubber accelerators, in soaps and cleaning compounds and as an agricultural fungicide. In the body, DMA also undergoes nitrosation under weak acid conditions to give dimethlynitrosamine.