Abstract
Publisher Summary This chapter outlines the metabolic role of vitamin B12 and folic acid in hemato- and other cell-poiesis. Vitamin B12 and folic acid are essential for normal growth and proliferation of all human cells. Vitamin B12 functions through currently unknown biochemical mechanisms to maintain myelin throughout the nervous system. Neither vitamin B12 nor folic acid occurs as such in significant quantity in the human body, micro-organisms, or the various food materials from which these vitamins are isolated. Deficiency of either vitamin B12 or folic acid produces a clinical disorder in man known as megaloblastic anemia, characterized by increased size and slowed DNA synthesis in all proliferating cells in the body. Vitamin B12 is the generic descriptor for all forms of the vitamin, including the two classes of cobamides that serve as coenzymes: the adenosylcobamides and the methylcobamides. The “5-methyltetrahydrofolate trap hypothesis,” which postulates that vitamin B12 deficiency is a conditioned folate deficiency, offers a satisfactory explanation for most of the clinical and biochemical similarities of vitamin B12 and folate deficiency in man.
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