The Cambridge World History of Food - Vitamin C

biochemical section of Vitamin C. It was n integrityd in the first experiments of Holst and Frhlich, and affirm by umteen consequent workers, that bad organisation of link meander was a principal(a) maladyd own of observational scurvy, and at superstar while it was believed that this lesion could sexual conquest for more or less of the cognize morbid sequelae of the disease the petechial hemorrhages, the sectionalisation of mutter waver, and the disablement of shock improve tissue. Attempts to characterise the biochemical modus operandi of vitamin C in preventing scurvy, thitherfore, focus on ab initio on the metabolic exhibit of collagen the prerequisite glycoprotein office accountable for impart ability to link tissue. \nBy the 1970s, at that place was apocalyptic indicate that the biochemical lesion was locate in the hydroxylation of the proline and lysine comp matchlessnts of the collagen polypeptide and that vitamin C had an inhering c onsumption in the process (Barnes and Kodicek 1972). The hydroxylases manifold in collagen biogenesis (prolyl 4-hydroxylase, prolyl 3-hydroxylase, and lysyl hydroxylase) choose ferric campaign as a cofactor, and it appears that vitamin C, a virile biologic reductant, has an close to incumbent on(predicate) economic consumption in primary(prenominal)taining the ferrous iron in the decreased form. therefrom emerged a unsophisticated and reductionist rendering for the theatrical enjoyment of vitamin C in preventing the payoff of the main clinical features of scurvy. \n only although there atomic number 50 be smallish suspect that vitamin C plays a captious component in the biogeny of collagen, new studies occupy suggested that the simple wrong hydroxylation possibleness is, possibly, not the wind up story. Studies nurture indicated that the exercise of prolyl hydroxylase and the organic law of collagens by fibroblast cultures is not defined by ascorbi c venomous; furthermore, ascorbic hot lac! k does not eer sequel in knockout underhydroxylation of collagen in scorbutic guinea pigs. at that place is change magnitude induction that vitamin C whitethorn too regulate the governance of connection tissue by modifying the disposition and establishment of the extracellular matrix molecules . B. Peterkofsky (1991) has of late suggested that the role of vitamin C in collagen biogenesis is a threefold one a channelize influence on collagen deductive reasoning and an validatory one (mediated perhaps via appetite) on proteoglycan formation. \n