BACKGROUND Zinc deficiency, common in developing countries, is associated with decreased immunocompetence. Zinc supplementation benefits children with acute and persistent diarrhea and prevents pneumonia. Most deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases are from measles and whooping cough; pneumonia is the most common complication of measles and often the proximate cause of related deaths. OBJEC...

Aging comprises of two synergistic processes: intrinsic or chronologic aging, and extrinsic aging. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main accelerator skin ageing, inducing production reactive oxygen species (ROS) pro-inflammatory mediators in cells. Retinol gold standard anti-aging treatments. As part a multi-decade ethnicity study, we studied human skin’s response either to UVA exposure an enh...

1. We have recently shown that the stellate cells, under normal conditions, contain a majority (more than 80%) of the total store of retinol in liver (Blomhoff et al. 1985). 2. In the present work we have studied the role of the various liver cells in rats of different ages, sex and vitamin A status. 3. In most of these groups of rats, storage of retinol in parenchymal cells was proportional to...

We recently demonstrated a rapid up-regulation of serum retinol-retinol binding protein-transthyretin concentration in rats with short-term acute renal failure. We examine the effect of retinoic acid and apo-retinol binding protein (apo-RBP) on the up-regulation of serum retinol in renal failure. Injection of retinoic acid (10 micrograms) into rats with acute renal failure or sham-operated rats...

The precise mechanism of uptake of long-chain fatty acids (FA) by cardiac myocytes is incompletely understood. We examined the involvement of sarcolemmal proteins in the initial uptake of FA by isolated rat cardiac myocytes, and the relation between initial uptake and metabolism. Cardiac myocytes were incubated in the presence of 90 microns [1-14C]palmitate complexed to 300 microns bovine serum...

A rapid, selective and sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography method has been developed for the detection and quantification of tocopherols and retinol in human plasma. Alpha-tocopherol, gamma-tocopherol and retinol are assayed using fluorescence detection. Excitation/emission wavelengths are 295/330 nm and 325/470 nm for the analysis of both tocopherols and retinol, respectively. Re...

Understanding of the stereospecificity of enzymatic reactions that regenerate the universal chromophore required to sustain vision in vertebrates, 11-cis-retinal, is needed for an accurate molecular model of retinoid transformations. In rod outer segments (ROS), the redox reaction involves all-trans-retinal and pro-S-NADPH that results in the production of pro-R-all-trans-retinol. A recently id...

Retinol and its derivative, retinoic acid, have pleiotropic functions including vision, immunity, hematopoiesis, reproduction, cell differentiation/growth, and development. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common diseases in developed countries and encompasses a broad spectrum of forms, ranging from steatosis to steatohepatitis, which develops further to cirrhosis. R...

Exposure of insulin-producing cells to elevated levels of the free fatty acid (FFA) palmitate results in the loss of β-cell function and induction of apoptosis. The induction of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is one mechanism proposed to be responsible for the loss of β-cell viability in response to palmitate treatment; however, the pathways responsible for the induction of ER stress by palm...

The regeneration of 11-cis-retinal, the universal chromophore of the vertebrate retina, is a complex process involving photoreceptors and adjacent retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE). 11-cis-Retinal is coupled to opsins in both rod and cone photoreceptor cells and is photoisomerized to all-trans-retinal by light. Here, we show that RPE microsomes can catalyze the reverse isomerization of 11-...