Nutrition and Health Sciences, Department of

 

ORCID IDs

Vicki L. Schlegel

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2013

Citation

British Journal of Nutrition (2013), 110, 321–329; doi:10.1017/S0007114512005065

Comments

Copyright © 2013 Wei Kay Eng, David Giraud, Vicki L. Schlegel, Dong Wang, Bo Hyun Lee and Janos Zempleni; published by Cambridge University Press. Used by permission.

Abstract

Human biotin requirements are unknown and the identification of reliable markers of biotin status is necessary to fill this knowledge gap. Here, we used an outpatient feeding protocol to create states of biotin deficiency, sufficiency and supplementation in sixteen healthy men and women. A total of twenty possible markers of biotin status were assessed, including the abundance of biotinylated carboxylases in lymphocytes, the expression of genes from biotin metabolism and the urinary excretion of biotin and organic acids. Only the abundance of biotinylated 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase (holo-MCC) and propionyl-CoA carboxylase (holo-PCC) allowed for distinguishing biotin-deficient and biotin-sufficient individuals. The urinary excretion of biotin reliably identified biotin-supplemented subjects, but did not distinguish between biotin-depleted and biotin-sufficient individuals. The urinary excretion of 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid detected some biotin-deficient subjects, but produced a meaningful number of false-negative results and did not distinguish between biotinsufficient and biotin-supplemented individuals. None of the other organic acids that were tested were useful markers of biotin status. Likewise, the abundance of mRNA coding for biotin transporters, holocarboxylase synthetase and biotin-dependent carboxylases in lymphocytes were not different among the treatment groups. Generally, datasets were characterised by variations that exceeded those seen in studies in cell cultures.We conclude that holo-MCC and holo-PCC are themost reliable, single markers of biotin status tested in the present study.

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