Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection
I worked in Hopkins’s laboratory some 35 years ago, so I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to take part in this Symposium. It was suggested that I should deal generally with the biochemical side of vitamins, but in the time at my command I have chosen to deal with some facets with which I am ac...
Published in: | Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 |
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 2024-06-02T08:04:03+00:00 Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection 1962 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences volume 156, issue 964, page 351-365 ISSN 0080-4649 2053-9193 journal-article 1962 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 2024-05-07T14:16:57Z I worked in Hopkins’s laboratory some 35 years ago, so I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to take part in this Symposium. It was suggested that I should deal generally with the biochemical side of vitamins, but in the time at my command I have chosen to deal with some facets with which I am acquainted. For my first theme I have singled out a few of the newer findings about vitamin A, which substance has interested us at Shinfield for quite a long time. Some 14 years ago Deuel and his collaborators in California (Mattson, Mehl & Deuel 1947; Wiese, Mehl & Deuel 1947), Morton and his collaborators in Liverpool (Glover, Goodwin & Morton 1947) and ourselves at Shinfield (Thompson, Ganguly & Kon 1947), showed that the conversion of carotene into vitamin A takes place in the small intestine. Shortly afterwards we learned that a German worker (Wagner 1939) had, well before that date, described the conversion of carotene into vitamin A in the intestine of the whale. We were intrigued by this finding, since the baleen whales which Wagner studied feed on small Crustacea which contain hardly any carotene but large quantities of astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid pigment characteristic of marine invertebrates, contains 4 oxygen atoms in the molecule, and does not serve as a vitamin A precursor to warm-blooded animals. On re-investigating the problem we found, in fact, hardly any carotene in the stomach contents of whales or in the euphausiid shrimps on which they feed but, to our surprise, appreciable quantities of preformed vitamin A in both (Kon & Thompson 1949). This first demonstration was by the Carr-Price colour test with antimony trichloride, and though the reaction was perfectly normal we, of course, wished to confirm by biological tests that we were really dealing with vitamin A in a class of animals in which it was not known at the time to be of normal occurrence. Article in Journal/Newspaper baleen whales The Royal Society Carr ENVELOPE(130.717,130.717,-66.117,-66.117) Morton ENVELOPE(-61.220,-61.220,-62.697,-62.697) Kon ENVELOPE(161.092,161.092,55.397,55.397) Goodwin ENVELOPE(-62.833,-62.833,-65.100,-65.100) Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences 156 964 351 365 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
The Royal Society |
op_collection_id |
crroyalsociety |
language |
English |
description |
I worked in Hopkins’s laboratory some 35 years ago, so I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to take part in this Symposium. It was suggested that I should deal generally with the biochemical side of vitamins, but in the time at my command I have chosen to deal with some facets with which I am acquainted. For my first theme I have singled out a few of the newer findings about vitamin A, which substance has interested us at Shinfield for quite a long time. Some 14 years ago Deuel and his collaborators in California (Mattson, Mehl & Deuel 1947; Wiese, Mehl & Deuel 1947), Morton and his collaborators in Liverpool (Glover, Goodwin & Morton 1947) and ourselves at Shinfield (Thompson, Ganguly & Kon 1947), showed that the conversion of carotene into vitamin A takes place in the small intestine. Shortly afterwards we learned that a German worker (Wagner 1939) had, well before that date, described the conversion of carotene into vitamin A in the intestine of the whale. We were intrigued by this finding, since the baleen whales which Wagner studied feed on small Crustacea which contain hardly any carotene but large quantities of astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid pigment characteristic of marine invertebrates, contains 4 oxygen atoms in the molecule, and does not serve as a vitamin A precursor to warm-blooded animals. On re-investigating the problem we found, in fact, hardly any carotene in the stomach contents of whales or in the euphausiid shrimps on which they feed but, to our surprise, appreciable quantities of preformed vitamin A in both (Kon & Thompson 1949). This first demonstration was by the Carr-Price colour test with antimony trichloride, and though the reaction was perfectly normal we, of course, wished to confirm by biological tests that we were really dealing with vitamin A in a class of animals in which it was not known at the time to be of normal occurrence. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
spellingShingle |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
title_short |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
title_full |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
title_fullStr |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
title_full_unstemmed |
Vitamins A and B 12 and some comments on refection |
title_sort |
vitamins a and b 12 and some comments on refection |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
1962 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(130.717,130.717,-66.117,-66.117) ENVELOPE(-61.220,-61.220,-62.697,-62.697) ENVELOPE(161.092,161.092,55.397,55.397) ENVELOPE(-62.833,-62.833,-65.100,-65.100) |
geographic |
Carr Morton Kon Goodwin |
geographic_facet |
Carr Morton Kon Goodwin |
genre |
baleen whales |
genre_facet |
baleen whales |
op_source |
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences volume 156, issue 964, page 351-365 ISSN 0080-4649 2053-9193 |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0075 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
156 |
container_issue |
964 |
container_start_page |
351 |
op_container_end_page |
365 |
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