Bito Tomohiro, Watanabe Fumio
Faculty of Agriculture, School of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences, Tottori University, Tottori 680-8553, Japan.
Faculty of Agriculture, School of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences, Tottori University, Tottori 680-8553, Japan
Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2016 Sep;241(15):1663-8. doi: 10.1177/1535370216662713. Epub 2016 Aug 2.
Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode that has been widely used as an animal for investigation of diverse biological phenomena. Vitamin B12 is essential for the growth of this worm, which contains two cobalamin-dependent enzymes, methylmalonyl-CoA mutase and methionine synthase. A full complement of gene homologs encoding the enzymes associated with the mammalian intercellular metabolic processes of vitamin B12 is identified in the genome of C elegans However, this worm has no orthologs of the vitamin B12-binders that participate in human intestinal absorption and blood circulation. When the worm is treated with a vitamin B12-deficient diet for five generations (15 days), it readily develops vitamin B12 deficiency, which induces worm phenotypes (infertility, delayed growth, and shorter lifespan) that resemble the symptoms of mammalian vitamin B12 deficiency. Such phenotypes associated with vitamin B12 deficiency were readily induced in the worm.
秀丽隐杆线虫是一种线虫,已被广泛用作研究各种生物学现象的动物。维生素B12对这种蠕虫的生长至关重要,它含有两种依赖钴胺素的酶,即甲基丙二酰辅酶A变位酶和甲硫氨酸合酶。在秀丽隐杆线虫的基因组中鉴定出了与哺乳动物细胞间维生素B12代谢过程相关的酶的完整基因同源物。然而,这种蠕虫没有参与人体肠道吸收和血液循环的维生素B12结合蛋白的直系同源物。当用缺乏维生素B12的饮食处理蠕虫五代(15天)时,它很容易出现维生素B12缺乏症,从而引发类似于哺乳动物维生素B12缺乏症状的蠕虫表型(不育、生长延迟和寿命缩短)。与维生素B12缺乏相关的这种表型很容易在蠕虫中诱发。