ビタミンEのantioxidantおよびnon-antioxidant作用 : ビタミンE研究の新展開

概要

論文の詳細を見る
The biological role of vitamin E has been attributed to its direct antioxidant function by acting as a lipid radical chain breaking molecule. Recently, indirect antioxidant and non-antioxidant functions of vitamin E have been proposed. The former is the functions preventing from oxygen stress by acting not as a radical scavenger, and the latter is the functions regulating of gene and protein expressions independent of its antioxidant functions. Since α-tocopherol has the highest antioxidant activity, many stronger functions observed in tocols and tocotrienols than in α-tocopherol are attributed to non-antioxidant mechanism. Furthermore, new recent findings concerning the vitamin E-specific binding proteins gave a clue to know the transport and supply of vitamin E to tissues and its tissue-specific roles depending on its distribution to specific tissues such as the central nervous system and the feto-maternal unit. In this paper I review the functions of vitamin E from the view-points as above mentioned.
2005-09-25