E biodiscrimination

There have been considerable advances in our understanding of vitamin E biochemistry within the past ten years (Stone and Papas, 1997 Stocker and Azzi, 2000 Brigelius Flohe and Traber, 1999). The high biological activity of a-tocopherol appears to be the result of biodiscrimination occurring in the 

The hepatic 31 kDa a-TTP is a cytosolic protein that has been purified and found to exist as two charge isoforms (Kuhlenkamp et al, 1993). The primary structures of a-TTP from rat liver (Sato et al, 1993) and human liver (Arita et al, 1995) have been determined and found to have a structural homology with retinaldehyde-binding protein (Sato et al, 1993). It is now known that a defect in a-TTP is the cause of ataxia (a nervous disorder characterized by the inability to coordinate muscular movement) associated with familial isolated vitamin E deficiency (Traber eta/., 1990c Schuelke eta/., 1999). Recent work also indicates that a-TTP is very important for the normal development of placental labyrinthine trophoblasts the placenta of female mice deficient in a-TTP was found to be extremely impaired and the embryos died at mid-gestation (Jishage et al, 2001). 

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