Choline and betaine provide methyl groups for one-carbon metabolism. Humans obtain these nutrients from a wide range of foods. Betaine can also be synthesized endogenously from its precursor, choline. Although animal studies have implied a causal relationship between choline deficiency and carcinogenesis, the role of these two nutrients in human carcinogenesis and tumor progression is not well ...

Choline dietary intake varies such that many people do not achieve adequate intakes. Diet intake of choline can modulate methylation because, via betaine homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT), this nutrient (and its metabolite, betaine) regulate the concentrations of S-adenosylhomocysteine and S-adenosylmethionine. Some of the epigenetic mechanisms that modify gene expression without modifying ...

Methionine is critical in amino acid nutrition for chickens, yet details of the flux of Met metabolites in the avian system are lacking. This study explored the interactions among dietary choline (CHO), betaine (BET), and sulfur amino acid levels on growth and hepatic homocysteine (HCY) remethylation. Graded levels (0, 0.07, 0.11, and 0.24%) of DL-Met were added to diets adequate in CHO and def...

Intersections in hepatic methyl group metabolism pathways highlights potential competition or compensation of methyl donors. The objective of this experiment was to examine the expression of genes related to methyl group transfer and lipid metabolism in response to increasing concentrations of choline chloride (CC) and DL-methionine (DLM) in primary neonatal hepatocytes that were or were not ex...

Obesity is an underlying risk factor in the development of cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Increased hepatic lipid accumulation is a hallmark in the progression of NAFLD and impairments in liver phosphatidylcholine (PC) metabolism may be central to the pathogenesis. Hepatic PC biosynthesis, which is linked to the one-carbon (C1) metabolism by ...

The time course of betaine accumulation and activities of enzymes involved in betaine metabolism were studied in developing rats. In study 1, pups weaned on a nonpurified diet had a transient increase in liver and kidney betaine content followed by a decline after approximately 42-56 d. In study 2, dams and, following weaning, pups were fed an AIN-93G (betaine-free) or an AIN-93G betaine-supple...

To better understand the regulation of biliary phospholipid and cholesterol excretion, canalicular membranes were isolated from the livers of C57BL/6J mice and abundant proteins separated by SDS-PAGE and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry. A prominent protein revealed by this analysis was betaine homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT). This enzyme catalyz...

Normal folate, homocysteine, and methyl group metabolism is critical for maintaining optimum health, and perturbations in these mechanisms may lead to a number of pathological conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and cancer. Hyperhomocysteinemia is a condition that occurs when blood plasma concentrations of homocysteine exceed 15μM and has been implicated as...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The gene betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT) has drawn much attention during the past decades. An increasing number of clinical and genetic investigations have supposed that BHMT rs3733890 polymorphism might be associated with risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. As no consistent conclusion has been achieved, we conducted an up-to-date summary of BHMT rs3...