Spermine is a polyamine involved in cellular metabolism that is found in all eukaryotic cells.

Spermine is associated with nucleic acids and is thought to stabilize helical structure, particularly in viruses.

[2] Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first described crystals of spermine phosphate in human semen in 1678.

[3] The name spermin was first used by the German chemists Ladenburg and Abel in 1888,[4][5] and the correct structure of spermine was not finally established until 1926, simultaneously in England (by Dudley, Rosenheim, and Starling)[6][7] and Germany (by Wrede et al.).

The resulting N-carbamoylputrescine is acted on by a hydrolase to split off the urea group, leaving putrescine.