Niacin pellagra factor

The name niacin is often used for two compounds, namely pyridine-3-carboxylic acid and pyridine-3-carboxylic acid amide. This confusion occurs because there is no consistency in the empirical nomenclature used in nutrition literature. Harris 1 lists niacin and niacinamide as the terms preferred in the United States, and nicotinic acid and nicotinic acid amide in the British literature. A convenient solution to the problem would be to use the term niacin to refer generically to the two compounds of nutritional significance as anti-pellagra factor and adopt the names nicotinic acid and nicotinamide to refer specifically to each. Nicotinamide has been adopted by the Commission for the Reform of Nomenclature in Biological Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and nicotinic acid is already in current use in most British, United States and other scientific literature in English. 

Niacin was initially called pellagra preventing factor. 

Figure 9-18). Nicotinamide acts as a component of two important enzymes, NAD and NADP, which are involved in glycolysis, fat synthesis, and tissue respiration. Niacin is also known as the pellagra preventive factor. The incidence of pellagra has declined but is still a serious problem in parts of the Near East, Africa, southeastern Europe, and in North American populations that subsist on... 

Kynurenine Hydroxylase Kynurenine hydroxylase is an FAD-dependent mixed-function oxidase of the outer mitochondrial membrane, which uses NADPH as the reductant. The activity of kynurenine hydroxylase in the liver of riboflavin-deficient rats is only 30% to 50% of that in control animals, and deficient rats excrete abnormally large amounts of kynurenic and anthranilic acids after the administration of a loading dose of tryptophan, and, correspondingly lower amounts of quinolinate and niacin metabolites. Riboflavin deficiency may thus be a contributory factor in the etiology of pellagra when intakes of tryptophan and niacin are marginal (Section 8.5.1). 

It is likely that leucine is only a factor in the etiology of pellagra when the dietary intakes of both tryptophan and niacin are extremely low - a condition that may occur when sorghum is the dietary staple, especially during food shortage. 

PP Pellagra-preventing factor, obsolete name for niacin Q Ubiquinone (also called Q o)... 

PP FACTOR P.P, FACTOR-PELLAGRA PREVENTIVE FACTOR PYRIDINE-3-CARBONIC ACID PYRIDINE-P-CARBOXYLIC ACID PYRIDINE-3-CARBOXYLIC ACID 3-PYRIDINECARBOXYLIC ACID PYRIDINE-CARBOXYLIQUE-3 (FRENCH) S115 SK-NIACIN TINIC VITAPLEXN WAMPOCAP... 

An excellent and succinct overview is available in Kumaravel Rajakumar, Pellagra in the United States A Historical Perspective, Southern Medical Journal 93 (2000) 272-277. The identification of niacin as the specific pellagra-preventing factor was first reported in Conrad Arnold Elvehjem, The Isolation and Identification of the Anti-Black Tongue Factor, Journal of Biological Chemistry 123 (1938) 137-149. 

Another disease of prominent dermatological interest is pellagra, in which pyridoxine deficiency seems to represent one of the pathogenetic factors even though of less importance than the fundamental niacin deficiency. For this reason Csermely and Zardi (G13) examined 12 patients with this disease in an attempt to demonstrate a pyridoxine deficiency by determining xanthurenic acid after loading wiA L-tryptophan (100 mg/kg). The results obtained (C13) show that an abnormal excretion of xanthurenic acid occurred in 5 of 12 patients. Furthermore, the clinical picture of the disease does not differ in patients with normal or abnormal xanthurenic acid output. These data provide no definite information in regard to this disease, in which more than one metabolite would have to be measured. 

A deficiency in niacin causes pellagra, a disease that begins with dermatitis and ultimately causes insanity and death. More than 120,000 cases of pellagra were reported in the United States in 1927, mainly among poor people with unvaried diets. A factor known to be present in preparations of vitamin B prevented pellagra, but it was not until 1937 that the factor was identified as nicotinic acid. 

Nicotinic acid (niacin) and Nicotinamide (niadn-amide) (pellagra preventative factor V.PP) are metabolically interconvertible, water-soluble, simple pyridine derivatives with equal V. activity. They are widely distributed in nature, and are especially plen-... 

Niacin deficiency, named Pellagra, is characterized by diarrhoea, dermatitis, dementia and death, which usually appear in this order. The clinical expressions of pellagra are diverse (Prousky et al. 2011). Diagnosis was, and still is, difficult due to the unpredictable appearance of the different signs and symptoms in individual patients (Prousky et al. 2011). Pellagra can be divided into primary and secondary forms. Primary pellagra results from inadequate niacin and/or tryptophan in the diet. Secondary pellagra occurs when other diseases or factors affect niacin requirements. 

In 1937, Conrad A. Elvehjem isolated the P-P (pellagra preventive) factor, identified it as nicotinic acid (niacin). 

Niacin, the pellagra-preventive factor, is a unique vitamin in that one of the amino acids, tryptophan, serves as a precursor of this vitamin in many animal and plant species. It is interesting to note that niacinamide was shown to be part of two coenzymes prior to the discovery of its nutritional importance (Chapter 19). 

Two compounds, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide, have the biological activity of niacin. When nicotinic acid was discovered to be a curative and preventive factor for pellagra, it was already known as a chemical compound, and was therefore never assigned a number among the B vitamins. The name niacin was coined in the USA when it was decided to enrich maize meal with the vitamin to prevent pellagra - it was considered that the name nicotinic acid was not desirable because of the similarity to nicotine. In USA, the term niacin is commonly used to mean specifically nicotinic acid, and nicotinamide is known as niacinamide elsewhere niacin is used as a generic descriptor for both vitamers. Figure 2.16 shows the structures of nicotinic acid, niacin and the nicotinamide nucleotide coenzymes, NAD and NADE... 

Although the nutritional aetiology of pellagra is well established, and tryptophan or niacin will prevent or cure the disease, additional factors, including deficiency of riboflavin (and hence impaired activity of kynurenine hydroxylase) or vitamin (and hence impaired activity of kynureninase), may be important when intakes of tryptophan and niacin are only marginally adequate. 

Niacin, also formerly known as PP factor (Pellagra Preventive factor) or vitamin PP is a common name for nicotinic acid (pyridine-3-carboxyHc acid, 5-63) and its amide nicotinamide (niacin amide, also formerly known as vitamin Bj, 5-64). Both compounds have the same biological activity. 

Pyridine nucleotides are intimately associated with niacin, another B vitamin (the pellagra-preventive factor). Niacin is a simple pyridine derivative, pyridine-3-carboxylic acid or nicotinic acid. The amide (niacinamide, nicotinamide) also prevents pellagra. The vitamin appears in the coenzyme in this form ... 

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