New use for vitamins revealed
Updated on 22 June 2008
Simple vitamin supplements may one day be used to fix genetic flaws that affect health and performance, say scientists.
Much like tuning the engine of a car, vitamins could make it possible to "tweak" DNA which is not working properly.
Experiments on human genes transplanted into yeast suggest that minor metabolic malfunctions can be corrected in this way.
Vitamins have a major effect on enzymes, the natural catalysts on which many biological processes depend.
Many people have genetic flaws that make their enzymes less efficient than normal, according to molecular biologist Professor Jasper Rine, from the University of California at Berkeley.
The academic said if they knew their personal genetic profile - something which might become common in the future - they could repair specific faults with the right vitamins.
Prof Rine focused on a human enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) which needs the B vitamin folate to work properly. It plays a key role in synthesising molecules that go into the building blocks of DNA. Some cancer drugs target MTHFR to shut down DNA synthesis and prevent tumour growth.
Prof Rine's team carried out tests using DNA samples from 564 individuals drawn from different ethnic groups. Consistent with earlier studies, the researchers found three common variants of MTHFR, but also 11 additional uncommon variants. Four different gene mutations affected the way the human enzyme functioned in yeast.
Supplementing the diet of the cultured yeast with folate restored the most common variant to full working order. All but one of the less common variants were also made fully functional.
The effect of "tuning up" MTHFR in humans is unclear, but folate is already known to protect against birth defects and may also guard against heart disease and cancer.
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