Diverse in chemical nature, water soluble and lipid soluble vitamins are essential micronutrients that react with specific protein entities and are transported to sites for participation in intracellular events, both at the genomic and non-genomic levels. Thus, metabolic pathways and intracellular signaling are influenced by vitamins or their derivatives through vitamin binding to specific proteins. Vitamin-Binding Proteins: Functional Consequences examines the function of various vitamins based on this binding, as well as their role as antioxidants, leading to effects on intracellular mechanisms. This book explores the resulting functional consequences at the level of cells, tissues, and organs as well as the neurological, endocrine, and immune systems.
The text addresses the effects that lead to both normal physiological function and pharmacological activity with significant therapeutic potential in a wide spectrum of disease processes. Leading experts discuss various vitamins including the function of retinoids in development, immunity, and obesity; the role of vitamin D in the immune system, infectious processes, and cardiovascular disease; and the effects of vitamins E, C, and K on the vascular system.
Chapters cover the therapeutic potential of the vitamin B6 vitamer pyridoxamine and the lipid-soluble B1analogue benfotiamine. They also describe various functions of biotin as well as gene transcriptional regulation through biotin and biotin-binding proteins. The text addresses folate receptor-mediated therapeutics, vitamin B12 derivatives in tumor targeting, and implication of ascorbic acid in different disorders. Expounding newer areas of vitamin function, this book explores the interface of physiological vitamin function and pharmacological vitamin action, offering a broad perspective of possible vitamin binding therapeutics.
Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti is an emeritus professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He is the author of more than two hundred peer-reviewed publications and four books in the areas of metabolic biochemistry and neuroscience. The monograph on "Vitamin Receptors," which he edited in 1994, was reprinted by Cambridge University Press in 2010 in their classics series. Dr. Dakshinamurti was elected to emeritus professorship of the University of Manitoba in 1998. He was codirector of the Centre for Health Policy Studies at the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre. Currently he is the senior advisor of the Research Centre.
Shyamala Dakshinamurti is a neonatologist and biomedical researcher at the University of Manitoba. She was appointed to the Department of Physiology in 2005 and became associate professor of pediatrics in 2008. Since 2005, she has been the coordinator of neonatal research for the eclectically disparate research streams within the section of neonatology. She organizes the annual international Bowman Symposium in Neonatal Research and is the research director for the U of M Neonatology Fellowship Program. Dr. Dakshinamurti was appointed Dr. F.W. Du Val Clinical Research Professor in the Faculty of Medicine. Her research interests are pulmonary hemodynamics during circulatory transition and the physiology and pharmacology of vascular smooth muscle.
