Human serum determination and in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of the vitamin E metabolite α-(13'-hydroxy)-6-hydroxychroman.

Cytochrome P450-derived long-chain metabolites are gaining increasing interest as bioactive intermediates of vitamin E. In this study we first report on the HPLC-ECD and GC-MS analysis in human serum of the earliest metabolite of this vitamin, namely α-(13'-hydroxy)-6-hydroxychroman (α-13'-OH). The two chromatographic procedure are sensitive enough (LOQ of 10nM) to measure α-13'-OH after hexane extraction of 1 ml of sample obtained from healthy volunteers supplemented for 1-week with 1000 IU/d (671 mg/d) RRR-α-tocopherol.

Melatonin regulates mesenchymal stem cell differentiation: a review.

Among the numerous functions of melatonin, the control of survival and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has been recently proposed. MSCs are a heterogeneous population of multipotent elements resident in tissues such as bone marrow, muscle, and adipose tissue, which are primarily involved in developmental and regeneration processes, gaining thus increasing interest for tissue repair and restoration therapeutic protocols. Receptor-dependent and receptor-independent responses to melatonin are suggested to occur in these cells.

Post-seizure α-tocopherol treatment decreases neuroinflammation and neuronal degeneration induced by status epilepticus in rat hippocampus.

Vitamin E (as α-tocopherol, α-T) was shown to have beneficial effects in epilepsy, mainly ascribed to its antioxidant properties. Besides radical-induced neurotoxicity, neuroinflammation is also involved in the pathophysiology of epilepsy, since neuroglial activation and cytokine production exacerbate seizure-induced neurotoxicity and contribute to epileptogenesis. We previously showed that α-T oral supplementation before inducing status epilepticus, markedly reduces astrocytic and microglial activation, neuronal cell death and oxidative stress in the hippocampus, as observed 4 days after seizure.

Nondialyzable uremic toxins.

Nondialyzable uremic toxins can be defined as solutes producing adverse biological effects that consequently to peculiar physicochemical features (mainly their large size and hydrophobic character) cannot leave the blood stream through a dialysis membrane. These are the subject of great interest for the scientific community, in that emerging evidence suggests that such uremic retention solutes may contribute a main role to the complex inflammatory and vascular comorbidity of the uremic syndrome. Treatments based on most efficient diffusive or convective protocols of dialysis and pharmacological therapies cannot prevent nor correct such clinical symptoms.

Mitochondrial-dependent anticancer activity of δ-tocotrienol and its synthetic derivatives in HER-2/neu overexpressing breast adenocarcinoma cells.

Anticancer activity and mitochondrial mechanism of the vitamin E form δ-tocotrienol (δ-T3) was investigated in HER-2/neu-overexpressing human SKBR3 and murine TUBO breast cancer cells. δ-T3 was confirmed to possess high cytotoxic and apoptotic activity in SKBR3 cells as compared with all natural forms of vitamin E and several synthetic forms that included novel derivatives with the same backbone of δ-T3 such as δ-tocotrienyl-succinyl amide (δ-T3AS) and the redox-active analogue δ-tocotrienyl amine (δ-T3NH2). As observed in the case of alpha-TOS, a prototypical anticancer drug derived from α-tocopherol, succinylation of δ-T3 enhanced citotoxicity and apoptotic activity of the vitamer.