Retinol (vitamin A alcohol) is an accepted adjunctive treatment in infections such as measles. There is also indirect evidence from in vitro, animal and human studies that retinol supplementation may be beneficial in severe malaria. There have, however, been no studies that have examined the pharmacokinetics of acute retinol supplementation in severe illness. To establish whether mobilization o...

Dietary intakes and plasma concentrations of retinol and carotenoids were estimated in assessing the vitamin A status of Korean adults living in Seoul and the metropolitan area. Three consecutive 24-h food recalls were collected from 106 healthy subjects (33 males and 73 females) aged 20-59 years. Fasting blood samples of the subjects were obtained and plasma retinol and carotenoids were analyz...

Background While electrospun materials have been frequently used in tissue engineering no wound dressings exist that significantly improved wound healing effectively. Methods We succeeded to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) electrospun poly(D,l-lactide) (PLA) fiber mats into which nanospheres, formed from amorphous calcium polyphosphate (polyP) nanoparticles (NP) and encapsulated retinol ("re...

Vitamin A (retinol) plays a key role in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation, and has been studied as a potential chemopreventive agent for prostate cancer. However, findings from epidemiologic studies on the association between circulating retinol concentrations and the risk of prostate cancer are inconsistent. We examined whether serum concentrations of retinol were associated wi...

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...

Greater exposure to retinol (vitamin A) may prevent prostate cancer, although under some conditions it could promote cell growth and de-differentiation. The authors prospectively examined prostate cancer risk and serum retinol levels, measured by using high-performance liquid chromatography, at baseline (n = 29,104) and after 3 years (n = 22,843) in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Pr...

Mice lacking retinol-binding protein (RBP) have low circulating retinol levels. They have severe visual defects due to a low content of retinol or retinyl esters in the eye. A transgenic mouse strain that expresses human RBP under the control of the muscle creatine kinase promoter in the null background was generated. The exogenous protein bound retinol and transthyretin in the circulation and ...

Sustained virologic response with peg-interferon and ribavirin combination therapy for 48 weeks is still inadequate. Our study examined whether short-term administration of retinol clinically influences the anti-viral activity of interferon early during interferon and ribavirin combination therapy. The control group received 6 MIU of interferon alpha-2b every day for two weeks and then 3 times ...

Retinoids are vitamin A (retinol) derivatives and complex regulators of adipogenesis by activating specific nuclear receptors, including the retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and retinoid X receptor (RXR). Circulating retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) and its membrane receptor STRA6 coordinate cellular retinol uptake. It is unknown whether retinol levels and the activity of RAR and RXR in adipocyte p...

The isolated perfused liver was employed to study various aspects of retin01-C~~ metabolism. The rate of uptake of retinol, retinal, retinoic acid, and retinol acetate was rapid (first-order rate constant, k = 0.12-0.16 min-') during the first 3-10 min of perfusion, and then decreased quickly. After 1 hr of perfusion, 5040% of perfusate retinal-Cl4, 2530% of retinol-c", and 20% of retinol-C14 a...