Abstract
Water-soluble vitamins like B3 (nicotinamide), B6 (pyridoxine), and B9 (folic acid) are of utmost importance in human health and disease, as they are involved in numerous critical metabolic reactions. Not surprisingly, deficiencies of these vitamins have been linked to various disease states. Unfortunately, not much is known about the physiological levels of B6 vitamers and vitamin B3 in an ethnically isolated group (such as an Emirati population), as well as their relationship with obesity. The aim of the present study was to quantify various B6 vitamers, as well as B3, in the plasma of obese and healthy Emirati populations and to examine their correlation with obesity. A sensitive and robust HPLC-MS/MS-based method was developed for the simultaneous quantitation of five physiologically relevant forms of vitamin B6, namely pyridoxal, pyridoxine, pyridoxamine, pyridoxamine phosphate, and pyridoxal phosphate, as well as nicotinamide, in human plasma. This method was used to quantify the concentrations of these vitamers in the plasma of 57 healthy and 57 obese Emirati volunteers. Our analysis showed that the plasma concentrations of nicotinamide, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine phosphate in the obese Emirati population were significantly higher than those in healthy volunteers (p < 0.0001, p = 0.0006, and p = 0.002, respectively). No significant differences were observed for the plasma concentrations of pyridoxine and pyridoxal phosphate. Furthermore, the concentrations of some of these vitamers in healthy Emirati volunteers were significantly different than those published in the literature for Western populations, such as American and European volunteers. This initial study underscores the need to quantify micronutrients in distinct ethnic groups, as well as people suffering from chronic metabolic disorders.
Highlights
It is well-established that vitamins and their metabolites are critical for cellular homeostasis, as well as cellular metabolism, mainly as coenzymes
Compared with an average normal concentration of 4.9 nM PMP for the healthy US population [41] and below the detection limit for the European population [48], we found higher PMP concentrations in healthy and obese Emirati populations, with values of 30.2 and 53.2 nM of PMP, respectively
Vitamin standards and other reagents were purchased from different suppliers as follows: pyridoxal-50 -phosphate hydrate, pyridoxal hydrochloride, pyridoxamine-50 -phosphate, nicotinamide, phosphate-buffered saline, Tris(2-carboxyethyl) phosphate hydrochloride, heptafluorobutyric acid, trichloroacetic acid, formic acid, and LC-MS-grade water were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, St
Summary
It is well-established that vitamins and their metabolites are critical for cellular homeostasis, as well as cellular metabolism, mainly as coenzymes. Molecules 2020, 25, 3932 metabolism [3,4,5,6] Because all these vitamers are directly involved in various important cellular functions, their deficiency has a direct impact on human health. Supplementation is highly recommended for targeted populations such as pregnant women, lactating women, infants, the elderly, and athletes to prevent various diseases, such as cardiovascular risk [7], anemia, cognitive impairment [8], and neural tube defects in newborns [9,10]. Vitamin B6 has been shown to be important for normal cognitive function and in lowering the incidence of coronary heart disease among the elderly [11,12,13]. Vitamin B6 supplementation has been shown to reduce diabetic complications and incidences of neurodegenerative diseases in varying degrees [15].
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