Vanadium transport behavior

Vanadium is often taken up as vanadate, in a pathway parallel to phosphate. However, its oxidation state within organisms seems to be highly variable. Unusually high concentrations of vanadium occur in certain ascidians (the specific transport behavior of which will be dealt with later). The workers who first characterized the vanadium-containing compound of the tunicate, Ascidia nigra, coined the name tunichrome. The characterization of the compound as a dicatecholate has been reported. 

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