Schmölz L, Birringer M, Lorkowski S, Wallert M. Complexity of vitamin E metabolism. World J Biol Chem 2016; 7(1): 14-43 [PMID: 26981194 DOI: 10.4331/wjbc.v7.i1.14]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Stefan Lorkowski, PhD, Department of Nutritional Biochemistry and Physiology, Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany and Competence Center for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health, Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Dornburger Straße 25, 07743 Jena, Germany. stefan.lorkowski@uni-jena.de
Research Domain of This Article
Nutrition & Dietetics
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Biol Chem. Feb 26, 2016; 7(1): 14-43 Published online Feb 26, 2016. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v7.i1.14
Complexity of vitamin E metabolism
Lisa Schmölz, Marc Birringer, Stefan Lorkowski, Maria Wallert
Lisa Schmölz, Stefan Lorkowski, Maria Wallert, Department of Nutritional Biochemistry and Physiology, Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany and Competence Center for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health, Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 07743 Jena, Germany
Marc Birringer, Department of Nutritional, Food and Consumer Studies, University of Applied Sciences, 36037 Fulda, Germany
Author contributions: Schmölz L, Birringer M, Lorkowski S and Wallert M drafted parts of the manuscript; Birringer M and Lorkowski S revised it critically; Lorkowski S and Wallert M contributed equally.
Supported by Grants from “Forschung für die Praxis “of the Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst to Birringer M; and grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to Lorkowski S as an acknowledgement to the national institutions that currently support our research in the field of vitamin E and its long-chain metabolites.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Stefan Lorkowski, PhD, Department of Nutritional Biochemistry and Physiology, Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany and Competence Center for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health, Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Dornburger Straße 25, 07743 Jena, Germany. stefan.lorkowski@uni-jena.de
Telephone: +49-3641-949710 Fax: +49-3641-949712
Received: August 24, 2015 Peer-review started: August 27, 2015 First decision: October 27, 2015 Revised: November 25, 2015 Accepted: January 16, 2016 Article in press: January 19, 2016 Published online: February 26, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Several factors influence vitamin E bioavailability. Gender, age and genetic constitution cannot be modified but life-style and vitamin E intake can be. Physiological handling of vitamin E involves intestinal absorption, vascular transport, hepatic sorting by intracellular binding proteins, and hepatic metabolism. These processes involve kinetics which vary between the different vitamin E forms. The coordinated metabolism of vitamin E is an effective physiological pathway to prevent excessive accumulation of non-α-tocopherol forms. Interactions with other nutrients or pharmaceutics occur. To evaluate vitamin E status, analytical procedures to detect and quantify vitamin E and metabolites are crucial. Current state-of-the-art analytics are presented.
