title: Vitamins: an evolutionary perspective.
abstract: Access to vitamins and the genetic endownment to utilize them maintain vitamin-dependent metabolic homeostasis in heterotrophs. Whereas the extent of adverse nutritional experiences has declined in modern human societies, phenocopies of deficiency diseases persist; accordingly, they have high heritability. The "vitamin-responsive hereditary metabolic diseases" identify DNA that specifies conserved apoenzyme domains interacting with coenzyme and the cellular processes providing access to coenzymes. Could heterozygosity at those loci also be a determinant of disease (or health) under certain circumstances?
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Scriver
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase; D000429:Alcohol Oxidoreductases / Q000032:analysis; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003067:Coenzymes / Q000502:physiology; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D008661:Metabolism, Inborn Errors / Q000201:enzymology; D009154:Mutation; D009243:NAD / Q000378:metabolism; D010641:Phenotype; D014815:Vitamins / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D003067:Coenzymes; D014815:Vitamins; D009243:NAD; D000429:Alcohol Oxidoreductases; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase