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Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities

Vitamin E is a generic term frequently used to group together eight different molecules, namely: α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocopherol and the corresponding tocotrienols. The term tocopherol and eventually Vitamin E and its related activity was originally based on the capacity of countering foetal re-absorpti...

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Autores principales: Comitato, Raffaella, Ambra, Roberto, Virgili, Fabio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745503/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29156559
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antiox6040093
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author Comitato, Raffaella
Ambra, Roberto
Virgili, Fabio
author_facet Comitato, Raffaella
Ambra, Roberto
Virgili, Fabio
author_sort Comitato, Raffaella
collection PubMed
description Vitamin E is a generic term frequently used to group together eight different molecules, namely: α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocopherol and the corresponding tocotrienols. The term tocopherol and eventually Vitamin E and its related activity was originally based on the capacity of countering foetal re-absorption in deficient rodents or the development of encephalomalacia in chickens. In humans, Vitamin E activity is generally considered to be solely related to the antioxidant properties of the tocolic chemical structure. In recent years, several reports have shown that specific activities exist for each different tocotrienol form. In this short review, tocotrienol ability to inhibit cancer cell growth and induce apoptosis thanks to specific mechanisms, not shared by tocopherols, such as the binding to Estrogen Receptor-β (ERβ) and the triggering of endoplasmic reticulum (EndoR) stress will be described. The neuroprotective activity will also be presented and discussed. We propose that available studies strongly indicate that specific forms of tocotrienols have a distinct mechanism and biological activity, significantly different from tocopherol and more specifically from α-tocopherol. We therefore suggest not pooling them together within the broad term “Vitamin E” on solely the basis of their putative antioxidant properties. This option implies obvious consequences in the assessment of dietary Vitamin E adequacy and, probably more importantly, on the possibility of evaluating a separate biological variable, determinant in the relationship between diet and health.
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spelling pubmed-57455032018-01-02 Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities Comitato, Raffaella Ambra, Roberto Virgili, Fabio Antioxidants (Basel) Review Vitamin E is a generic term frequently used to group together eight different molecules, namely: α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocopherol and the corresponding tocotrienols. The term tocopherol and eventually Vitamin E and its related activity was originally based on the capacity of countering foetal re-absorption in deficient rodents or the development of encephalomalacia in chickens. In humans, Vitamin E activity is generally considered to be solely related to the antioxidant properties of the tocolic chemical structure. In recent years, several reports have shown that specific activities exist for each different tocotrienol form. In this short review, tocotrienol ability to inhibit cancer cell growth and induce apoptosis thanks to specific mechanisms, not shared by tocopherols, such as the binding to Estrogen Receptor-β (ERβ) and the triggering of endoplasmic reticulum (EndoR) stress will be described. The neuroprotective activity will also be presented and discussed. We propose that available studies strongly indicate that specific forms of tocotrienols have a distinct mechanism and biological activity, significantly different from tocopherol and more specifically from α-tocopherol. We therefore suggest not pooling them together within the broad term “Vitamin E” on solely the basis of their putative antioxidant properties. This option implies obvious consequences in the assessment of dietary Vitamin E adequacy and, probably more importantly, on the possibility of evaluating a separate biological variable, determinant in the relationship between diet and health. MDPI 2017-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC5745503/ /pubmed/29156559 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antiox6040093 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Comitato, Raffaella
Ambra, Roberto
Virgili, Fabio
Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title_full Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title_fullStr Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title_full_unstemmed Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title_short Tocotrienols: A Family of Molecules with Specific Biological Activities
title_sort tocotrienols: a family of molecules with specific biological activities
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745503/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29156559
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antiox6040093
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