Marine sediments can contain B vitamins, presumably incorporated from settled, decaying phytoplankton and microorganisms associated with decomposition. Because B vitamins may be advantageous for the energetically intensive processes of metamorphosis, post-metamorphic growth, and reproduction, we tested several B vitamins to determine if they would stimulate larvae of the deposit-feeding polycha...

To the Editor: Takahashi et al. 1 have recently described the effect of nicotinamide for controlling hyperphosphatemia in dialysis patients. However, Rottembourg et al. 2 reported thrombocytopenia in the same setting. We have started a prospective, open-label trial to study the efficiency and safety of nicotinamide in our hemodialysis patients with resistant hyperphosphatemia. Unlike Takahashi,...

Lysine acetylation has emerged as a global protein regulation system in all domains of life. Sirtuins, or Sir2-like enzymes, are a family of histone deacetylases characterized by their employing NAD+ as a co-substrate. Sirtuins can deacetylate several acetylated proteins, but a consensus substrate recognition sequence has not yet been established. Product inhibition of many eukaryotic sirtuins ...

In a survey of plant secondary metabolites regulating the behavior of phytopathogenic Aphanomyces cochlioides zoospores, we found that leaf extracts of Amaranthus gangeticus and cotyledon extracts of pea (Pisum sativum) remarkably halted the motility of zoospores. Bioassay-directed fractionation of A. gangeticus and pea constituents revealed that the halting activity was dependent on a single c...

Nicorandil, a nicotinamide ester, was first reported to be involved in the induction of oral ulcers in 1997. Since then, many reports of single or multiple nicorandil-induced ulcerations (NIUs) have been reported. We hypothesised that in the case of high-dosage nicorandil or after an increased dosage of nicorandil, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide (two main metabolites of nicorandil) cannot appr...

It has been reported that thyroxine increased the activity of kynurenine aminotransferase and reduced the activity of kynureinine 3-hydroxylase, with a resulting increase in the reaction ef kynurenine to kynurenic acid. By the traditional view, these changes were taken to mean that thyroxine suppressed the conyersion of tryptophan to nicotinamide; however, the effect of this hormone on the conv...

Arsenic-induced skin cancer is a significant global health burden. In areas with arsenic contamination of water sources, such as China, Pakistan, Myanmar, Cambodia and especially Bangladesh and West Bengal, large populations are at risk of arsenic-induced skin cancer. Arsenic acts as a co-carcinogen with ultraviolet (UV) radiation and affects DNA damage and repair. Nicotinamide (vitamin B3) red...

We have recently shown that a large amount of wine (750 mL, approximately 70 g of alcohol) markedly impairs postprandial hepatic protein metabolism in healthy subjects. This is probably due to the shift in the intracellular redox state (increased NADH/NAD+) induced by ethanol oxidation. If this hypothesis is true, the administration of nicotinamide (NAD+ precursor) should provide NAD+ in excess...

The antibiotic albocycline blocks the synthesis of nicotinate or nicotinamide in Bacillus subtilis cells. The inhibitory activity of the agent is fully reversed by nicotinic acid, nicotinamide, and, to a moderate extent, also by quinolinate. This suggests that in B. subtilis the antibiotic interferes with a reaction step occurring prior to the formation of quinolinate within the biosynthetic pa...

When Escherichia coli K-12 was grown on gamma-aminobutyrate, a second succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase, dependent upon oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate and distinct from that induced by gamma-aminobutyrate, was gratuitously induced by succinic semialdehyde.