Vitamin B12 and its Importance For Survival

Medical Biochemistry

Vitamin B12, vitamin B12 or vitamin B-12, also called cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and central nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight vitamins essential for the body.. It is normally involved in the metabolism of every cell of the human body, especially affecting DNA synthesis and regulation, but also fatty acid metabolism and amino acid metabolism. Neither fungi, plants, nor animals (including humans) are capable of producing vitamin B12. Only bacteria and archaea have the enzymes required for its synthesis, although many foods are a natural source of B12 because ofbacterial symbiosis. The vitamin is the largest and most structurally complicated vitamin and can be produced industrially only through bacterial fermentation-synthesis.Vitamin B12 consists of a class of chemically related compounds (vitamers), all of which have vitamin activity. It contains the biochemically rare element cobalt sitting in the center of a planar tetra-pyrrole ring called a corrin ring. Biosynthesis of the basic structure of the vitamin is accomplished only by bacteria and archaea (which usually produce hydroxycobalamin, but conversion between different forms of the vitamin can be accomplished in the human body. A common semi-synthetic form of the vitamin iscyanocobalamin, which does not occur in nature but is produced from bacterial hydroxocobalamin. Because of its stability and lower production cost, this form is then used in many pharmaceuticals and supplements as well as a food additive. In the body it is converted to the human physiological forms methylcobalamin or deoxy cobalamin, leaving behind the cyanide ion, albeit in a minimal concentration More recently, hydroxocobalamin, methylcobalamin, and adenosylcobalamin can be found in more expensive pharmacological products and food supplements. Their extra utility is currently debated. Vitamin B12 was discovered from its relationship to disease pernicious anemia, which is an autoimmune disease in which parietal cells of the stomach responsible for secreting intrinsic factor are destroyed (these cells are also responsible for secreting acid in the stomach). Because intrinsic factor is crucial for the normal absorption of B12, its lack in pernicious anemia causes a deficiency. Many other subtler kinds of vitamin B12 deficiency and their biochemical effects have since been elucidated.

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