Wallert Maria, Schmölz Lisa, Galli Francesco, Birringer Marc, Lorkowski Stefan
Department of Nutritional Biochemistry, Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
Laboratory of Molecular Modeling and Chemoinformatics, Department of Chemistry, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy.
Redox Biol. 2014 Feb 19;2:495-503. doi: 10.1016/j.redox.2014.02.002. eCollection 2014.
Vitamin E is likely the most important antioxidant in the human diet and α-tocopherol is the most active isomer. α-Tocopherol exhibits anti-oxidative capacity in vitro, and inhibits oxidation of LDL. Beside this, α-tocopherol shows anti-inflammatory activity and modulates expression of proteins involved in uptake, transport and degradation of tocopherols, as well as the uptake, storage and export of lipids such as cholesterol. Despite promising anti-atherogenic features in vitro, vitamin E failed to be atheroprotective in clinical trials in humans. Recent studies highlight the importance of long-chain metabolites of α-tocopherol, which are formed as catabolic intermediate products in the liver and occur in human plasma. These metabolites modulate inflammatory processes and macrophage foam cell formation via mechanisms different than that of their metabolic precursor α-tocopherol and at lower concentrations. Here we summarize the controversial role of vitamin E as a preventive agent against atherosclerosis and point the attention to recent findings that highlight a role of these long-chain metabolites of vitamin E as a proposed new class of regulatory metabolites. We speculate that the metabolites contribute to physiological as well as pathophysiological processes.
维生素E可能是人类饮食中最重要的抗氧化剂，而α-生育酚是最具活性的异构体。α-生育酚在体外具有抗氧化能力，并能抑制低密度脂蛋白（LDL）的氧化。除此之外，α-生育酚还具有抗炎活性，并能调节参与生育酚摄取、运输和降解以及胆固醇等脂质摄取、储存和输出的蛋白质的表达。尽管在体外具有良好的抗动脉粥样硬化特性，但维生素E在人体临床试验中未能起到动脉粥样硬化保护作用。最近的研究强调了α-生育酚长链代谢产物的重要性，这些代谢产物在肝脏中作为分解代谢中间产物形成，并存在于人体血浆中。这些代谢产物通过与其代谢前体α-生育酚不同的机制，在较低浓度下调节炎症过程和巨噬细胞泡沫细胞形成。在此，我们总结了维生素E作为动脉粥样硬化预防剂的争议性作用，并提请关注最近的研究结果，这些结果突出了维生素E的这些长链代谢产物作为一类新提出的调节性代谢产物的作用。我们推测这些代谢产物有助于生理以及病理生理过程。
