Children with diarrhoea due to rotavirus infection excrete retinol in urine. This study aimed at demonstrating the extent and mechanism of urinary retinol excretion in children with acute watery diarrhoea caused by pathogens other than rotavirus. Thirty-two children, aged five months to five years, hospitalized with watery diarrhoea predominantly due to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli in Bangl...

The physiology of two metabolites of vitamin A is understood in substantial detail: retinaldehyde functions as the universal chromophore in the vertebrate and invertebrate eye; retinoic acid regulates a set of vertebrate transcription factors, the retinoic acid receptor superfamily. The third member of this retinoid triumvirate is retinol. While functioning as the precursor of retinaldehyde and...

Vitamin A (retinol) is a prohormone that exerts its pleiotropic biological effects after conversion into multiple metabolites. In this report we describe the identification of three endogenous, retinolderived effector molecules, 14-hydroxy-retro-retinol (14-HRR), anhydroretinol (AR), and retinoic acid (RA) and a putative storage form of retinol, retinylesters (RE) in the human promyelocytic leu...

Human retinol-binding protein (RBP) and prealbumin were labeled with Z-hydroxy&nitrobenzyl bromide (HNB-Br) at pH 5.5 using 20to loo-fold molar excess of the label over tryptophan in each protein. In prealbumin, only 1 to 1.7 tryptophan residues out of 8 were modified under these conditions. This modification did not alter the capacity of prealbumin to bind to retinol-RBP at physiological ionic...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Activated pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) are implicated in the production of alcohol induced pancreatic fibrosis. PSC activation is invariably associated with loss of cytoplasmic vitamin A (retinol) stores. Furthermore, retinol and ethanol are known to be metabolised by similar pathways. Our group and others have demonstrated that ethanol induced PSC activation is mediated...

Retinoids are recognized as important regulators of vertebrate development, cell differentiation, and tissue function. Previous studies, performed both in vivo and in vitro, indicate that retinoids influence several reproductive events, including follicular development, oocyte maturation and early embryonic development. The present study evaluated in vitro effects of retinol addition to media c...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE In developing countries low maternal vitamin A stores combined with increased demands of pregnancy and lactation may lead to its deficiency in breastfed infants. This study evaluates the effects of maternal supplementation with a high dose of vitamin A on the serum retinol levels of exclusively breastfed infants, and their morbidity in the first six months of life. SE...

Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), the sole retinol transporter in blood, is secreted from adipocytes and liver. Serum RBP4 levels correlate highly with insulin resistance, other metabolic syndrome factors, and cardiovascular disease. Elevated serum RBP4 causes insulin resistance, but the molecular mechanisms are unknown. Here we show that RBP4 induces expression of proinflammatory cytokines in ...

BACKGROUND Our group and many others have used the relative-dose-response (RDR) test and the modified-RDR (MRDR) test as proxy indicators of liver stores of vitamin A. However, we have become concerned about the validity of these indicators. OBJECTIVE Simulation models were used to assess effects of random variations in serum retinol concentration on the RDR and to assess effects of group dif...

Specific cellular binding proteins for retinol and retinoic acid from mammalian and avian species may mediate the action of retinoids in the control of epithelial differentiation, growth and tumorigenesis. Parasite retinol-binding protein (PRBP) and parasite retinoic acid-binding protein (PRABP) isolated and characterized from parasitic worms of the family Filarioidea might be involved in some ...