Vitamin ligands

Dihydroxyvitamin (283) is the endogenous ligand for the vitamin receptor (VDR). It modulates genomic function in a tissue and developmentaHy specific manner and affects ceU proliferation, differentiation, and mineral homeostasis (74). Vitamin mobilizes calcium from the bone to maintain plasma Ca " levels. Vitamin and VDR are present in the CNS where they may play a role in regulating Ca " homeostasis. Vitamin D has potent immunomodulatory activity in vivo. 

Vitamin B12 (Fig. 1) is defined as a group of cobalt-containing conoids known as cobalamins. The common features of the vitamers are a corrin ting (four reduced pyrrole rings) with cobalt as the central atom, a nucleotide-like compound and a variable ligand. Vitamin B12 is exceptional in as far as it is the only vitamin containing a metal-ion. The vitamers present in biological systems are hydroxo-, aquo-, methyl-, and 5 -deoxyadenosylcobalamin. 

In cobalamin, vitamin Bu, one of the six ligands forming an octahedral structure around a cobalt atom is an organic molecule attached through a carbon-cobalt bond (red). The bond is weak and easily broken. 

Complexes of the composition RCo (dioximeH)2L (R = alkyl, L = neutral ligand) and their parent complexes with BR2 bridges RCo(dioxime-BR2)2L 127 (Fig. 33) are known as organocobaloximes [173-178] and have received attention being models for vitamin B12 (cobalamines) [183]. A series of related complexes of the composition Fe (dioxime-BR2)LL 128 (Fig. 33) without the metal-carbon bond is also known [179, 180]. 

The methods now used to measure 25-OH-D are competitive protein-ligand binding assays that use either serum globulin (diluted rat serum) (27)28) or a vitamin D-deficient rat kidney... 

The 25-OH-D Is further metabolized In the kidney to 1,25 dlhydroxycholecalclferol (1,25(OH)2D) which Is considered to be the major physiologically Important, tissue-active metabolite of vitamin D. It circulates In extremely low concentrations (< 100 pg/ml of serum). Assay of 1,25(OH)2D Is extremely tedious. It Is done by competitive binding technique using a combined Intestinal cell cytosol and chromatin binding system, biosynthetic 3h-1,25(OH)2D3 as labeled ligand and synthetic 1,25(0H)2D3 as standard (31). 

Vitamin Bjj compounds with different upper (L) and lower (R) ligands were fonnd in natnre (Figure 10.3). Some commercially available vitamin Bjj reagents, hydroxo-cobalamin and dicyanocobinamide, contain small amounts of impnrities [9]. Each vitamin Bjj reagent should be purified with silica gel 60 TLC [2-pro-panol/NH40H(28%)/water (7 1 2, v/v) as a solvent] and then used for experiments as an authentic standard material (Figure 10.4). 

From this sort of data it can be concluded that the cobalt(III) ion in this complex is a soft, or class b, Lewis acid. It has been suggested previously that the cobalt(III) ion in vitamin B12 was also a class b acid (138). The kinetic order, which presumably corresponds closely to the order of thermodynamic stability, suggests that for at least some ligands jr-bonding may be important. In this connection it is noteworthy that methylcobaloxime forms a complex with CO (139). 

Recent data indicate that SR-BI is a nonspecific receptor for many lipophilic molecules (Lorenzi et al., 2008 Reboul et al., 2007b). Apart from HDLs, rodent SR-BI also binds to LDL, VLDL, acetylated LDL, oxidized LDL, and maleylated bovine serum albumin. SR-BII has a similar ligand specificity and function to that of SR-BI (Webb et al., 1998). However, it has been shown that vitamin E (which like carotenoids is carried in the bloodstream mainly by LDL and HDL) is transported more efficiently into the endothelial cells from HDLs than from LDLs (Balazs et al., 2004 Kaempf-Rotzoll et al., 2003 Mardones and Rigotti, 2004). This is in striking contrast to cholesterol, which is taken up much more efficiently from LDLs than HDLs by the RPE to the retina (Tserentsoodol et al., 2006b). It remains to be shown which lipoproteins are the main carriers for carotenoids transported from blood into the RPE. 

One of the first enantioselective transition metal-catalyzed domino reactions in natural product synthesis leading to vitamin E (0-23) was developed by Tietze and coworkers (Scheme 0.7) [18]. This transformation is based on a Pdn-catalyzed addition of a phenolic hydroxyl group to a C-C-double bond in 0-20 in the presence of the chiral ligand 0-24, followed by an intermolecular addition of the formed Pd-spe-cies to another double bond. 

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