Affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, Osaka Medical College, 2‐7 Daigakumachi, Takatsuki, Osaka 569, Japan | Department of Health Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo‐ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
Note: [] Correspondence should be addressed to: Hiroshi Tamai, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Osaka Medical College, 2‐7 Daigakumachi, Takatsuki, Osaka 569, Japan.
Abstract: It is well known that the cellular concentration of \alpha‐tocopherol (\alpha ‐toc) is about 10‐fold greater than that of \gamma‐tocopherol (\gamma‐toc) despite the ingestion of a large amount of \gamma‐toc in the diet. Recently, this discrimination of tocopherol is considered to be attributed to \alpha‐tocopherol transfer protein (\alpha‐TTP) which binds to \alpha‐toc in preference to the other forms of tocopherol in the liver. In the present study, developmental changes in expression of \alpha‐TTP after birth were investigated using rats with respect to plasma changes of tocopherols. The expression of \alpha‐TTP in the neonatal rat liver, which was very low immediately after birth, increased steadily during the two weeks of life before weanling and reached the adult level at four weeks. During the suckling period, the plasma ratio of \alpha‐toc to \gamma‐toc linearly increased, because plasma \alpha‐toc which was low immediately after birth, increased rapidly during the period, while \gamma‐toc remained unchanged. The increase in the ratio seemed to correlate with the developmental expression of \alpha‐TTP in the liver during this period.
Journal: Biofactors, vol. 7, no. 1-2, pp. 87-91, 1998
