Special Issue "Vitamins"

Guest Editor
Dr. Thomas Netscher
Research and Development, DSM Nutritional Products, Bldg. 214/27, P.O. Box 2676, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland
E-Mail:

Dear Colleagues,

Vitamins are essential organic copmpounds which are either not synthesized in the human and animal organism or formed only in insufficient amounts. Nutraceuticals are the active ingredients in functional food or nutraceutical supplements that deliver a health benefit. Both groups of compounds must be taken up by nutrition and are of great economical importance as additives in food and feed (human and animal nutrition), in pharma, health and personal care products of daily life, as well as technical applications, for example as stabilizers.

Contributions for this special issue may cover all aspects of their chemistry, like investigations of biosynthesis, biological activity, metabolism, sourcing from nature, analytics, and the broad range of activities accompanied with organic chemical synthesis. This is preparation of stereoisomers, derivatives, labelled compounds, metabolites, analogues and intermediates, elucidation of reaction mechanisms, and development of efficient catalytic methods, including biotransformations, in particular directed towards environmentally benign large-scale production.

Thomas Netscher, Ph. D.
Guest Editor

Related Journals

Section Vitamins in Nutrients

Submission

All papers should be submitted to molecules@mdpi.org with copy to the guest editor. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special websites.

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed monthly journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a paper. Open Access publication fees are 800 CHF per paper. English correction fees (250 CHF) will be added in certain cases (1050 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections).

• organic synthesis
• catalysis
• biotransformation
• reaction mechanism
• biosynthesis
• analytics
• natural sources
• biological activity
• metabolism
• nutrition

Manuscript ID: Molecules-Vitamins-20090612-Capasso-it
Title: Potential Therapeutic Effects OF Vitamin E and C on Placental Oxidative Stress Induced by Nicotine: An in vitro Evidence
Type of Paper: Review
Authors: Chiara Gallo and Anna Capasso *
Affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Salerno, Italy
Abstract: There have been a few studies that examined the oxidative stress effects of nicotine during pregnancy. The adverse effect of prenatal smoking exposure on human fetal development and growth has been a major public health issue. Active or passive smoking during pregnancy can result in a wide variety of adverse outcomes, including intrauterine growth retardation, prematurity, stillbirth, and the sudden infant death syndrome. Smoking in pregnancy has also been associated with an increased risk of attention deficit and learning problems in childhood. Some studies argued that as a principal component of tobacco smoke, nicotine alone is responsible for the majority of negative reproductive outcomes. Nicotine and its major metabolite cotinine can cross the placental barrier. The level of nicotine in fetal tissues was found to be equal to or greater than the plasma nicotine level in the mothers. The oxidative stress induce by nicotine has been increasingly postulated as a major contributor to endothelial dysfunction. A large body of research has investigated the potential role of antioxidant nutrients in the prevention of endothelial dysfunction in women. Therefore, the present study was primarly designed to assess the potential benefit of antioxidant supplementation on markers of placental oxidative stress in an in vitro model of endothelial dysfunction induced by nicotine, since it was previously found that nicotine is able to trigger the placental secretion of stress molecules. In this regard, we evaluated the effects of vitamin C, vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), alone or in combination, in placental villi culture after exposure to nicotine. The effect of antioxidant nutrients on trophoblast cells proliferation and vitality was also evaluated. The results obtained suggest that in a pathophysiological condition, such as endothelial dysfunction induced by nicotine, the deleterious effect of reactive oxygen species may be counteract by an antioxidant therapy, and there is the need to investigate the optimum dosing and timing of antioxidants administration, since an inappropriate antioxidant treatment in pregnant women may have deleterious consequences, reducing placental cells proliferation until to cell death.

Manuscript ID: molecules-vatamins-200900701-Randaccio-it
Type of Paper: Review
Tentative Title: Vitamin B₁₂ : The Most Complex and Unique Metallorganic Vitamin
Author: Lucio Randaccio, Email: lrandaccio@units.it
Abstract: The chemistry and biochemistry of vitamin B₁₂ complexes (cobalamins) will be described with particular emphasis on structural aspects and their relationships with properties. After an introduction on scientific history of B₁₂, the first section will summarize the B₁₂ cofactor function. The main structural features of cobalamins will be described in the second section, with particular reference to the axial fragment. The third section will outline the structure/property relationships in cobalamins. The fourth section will be dedicated to a brief review of the structure of B₁₂ transport proteins and enzymes, methyltransferases, mutases and eliminases and to the relation between structure and enzymatic mechanisms. The last section will describe B₁₂ bioconjugates as potential tumour diagnostics and anti-tumour drugs.