In 1942, Folch and Woolley (1) reported that inositol is a constituent of brain phospholipids. Folch (2) later isolated from brain a lipid fraction containing 2 atoms of phosphorus per mole of inositol. This material, which was incompletely characterized, was termed brain diphosphoinositide. More recent work by Ballou and his co-workers (3, 4) and by Dawson and Dittmer (5) has shown that there ...

BACKGROUND Polycystic ovary syndrome is the most common cause of chronic anovulation infertility in women in fertile period, and it's characterized by an increased production of androgens and estrogens. The administration of myo-inositol, a B complex vitamin, was associated with a decreased of serum testosterone and simultaneously, due to its ability to increase insulin sensitivity, women who r...

Phytate or phytic acid (PA), is a phosphorus (P) containing compound generated by the stepwise phosphorylation of myo-inositol. It forms complexes with some nutrient cations, such as Ca, Fe and Zn, compromising their absorption thus acting an anti-nutrient in digestive tract humans monogastric animals. Conversely, PAs are important form P storage seeds, making up to 90% total seed P. Phytates a...

Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that the action of a phospholipase C on phosphoinositides in the cell membrane in response to the activation of a receptor is an integral part of an intracellular signalling pathway. Specific inhibitors of this enzyme and the site-specific kinases involved in inositide metabolism are urgently required to establish their function. An approach to the design...

Phosphoinositides, synthesized from myo-inositol, play a critical role in the development of growth cones and in synaptic activity. As neurons cannot synthesize inositol, they take it up from the extracellular milieu. Here, we demonstrate that, in brain and PC12 cells, the recently identified H(+)/myo-inositol symporter HMIT is present in intracellular vesicles that are distinct from synaptic a...

l-myo-inositol 1-phosphate synthase (MIPS; EC 5.5.1.4) catalyzes the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of myo-inositol, a critical compound in the cell. Plants contain multiple MIPS genes, which encode highly similar enzymes. We characterized the expression patterns of the three MIPS genes in Arabidopsis thaliana and found that MIPS1 is expressed in most cell types and developmental stages, w...

A sensitive method to directly measure the mass of inositol phosphates from biologic samples is described. The procedure uses ammonium sulfate gradient elution anion exchange column chromatography to isolate inositol monophosphate, bisphosphate, trisphosphate, and tetrakisphosphate. The isolated fractions are dephosphorylated and subsequently desalted by a novel approach using solid barium hydr...