Vitamin K Biochemistry

Discovery

In 1929, Danish scientist Henrik Dam investigated the role of cholesterol by feeding chickens a cholesterol-depleted diet. After several weeks, the animals developed hemorrhages and started bleeding. These defects could not be restored by adding purified cholesterol to the diet. It appeared that—together with the cholesterol—a second compound had been extracted from the food, and this compound was called the coagulation vitamin. The new vitamin received the letter K because the initial discoveries were reported in a German journal, in which it was designated as ''Koagulationsvitamin''. Edward Adelbert Doisy of Saint Louis University did much of the research that led to the discovery of the structure and chemical nature of Vitamin K. Dam and Doisy shared the 1943 Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on Vitamin K. Several laboratories synthesized the compound in 1939.

For several decades the vitamin K-deficient chick model was the only method of quantifying vitamin K in various foods: the chicks were made vitamin K-deficient and subsequently fed with known amounts of vitamin K-containing food. The extent to which blood coagulation was restored by the diet was taken as a measure for its vitamin K content. Three groups of physicians independently found this: Biochemical Institute, University of Copenhagen (Dam and Johannes Glavind), University of Iowa Department of Pathology (Emory Warner, Kenneth Brinkhous, and Harry Pratt Smith), and the Mayo Clinic (Hugh Butt, Albert Snell, and Arnold Osterberg). The first published report of successful treatment with vitamin K of life-threatening hemorrhage in a jaundiced patient with prothrombin deficiency was made in 1938 by Smith, Warner, and Brinkhous.

Function in the cell

The precise function of vitamin K was not discovered until 1974, when three laboratories (Stenflo ''et al.'', Nelsestuen ''et al.'', and Magnusson ''et al.'') isolated the vitamin K-dependent coagulation factor prothrombin (Factor II) from cows that received a high dose of a vitamin K antagonist, warfarin. It was shown that while warfarin-treated cows had a form of prothrombin that contained 10 glutamate amino acid residues near the amino terminus of this protein, the normal (untreated) cows contained 10 unusual residues which were chemically identified as gamma-carboxyglutamate, or Gla. The extra carboxyl group in Gla made clear that vitamin K plays a role in a carboxylation reaction during which Glu is converted into Gla.

The biochemistry of how Vitamin K is used to convert Glu to Gla has been elucidated over the past thirty years in academic laboratories throughout the world. Within the cell, Vitamin K undergoes electron reduction to a reduced form of Vitamin K (called Vitamin K hydroquinone) by the enzyme Vitamin K epoxide reductase (or VKOR). Another enzyme then oxidizes Vitamin K hydroquinone to allow carboxylation of Glu to Gla; this enzyme is called the gamma-glutamyl carboxylase or the Vitamin K-dependent carboxylase. The carboxylation reaction will only proceed if the carboxylase enzyme is able to oxidize Vitamin K hydroquinone to vitamin K epoxide at the same time; the carboxylation and epoxidation reactions are said to be coupled reactions. Vitamin K epoxide is then re-converted to Vitamin K by the Vitamin K epoxide reductase. These two enzymes comprise the so-called Vitamin K cycle. One of the reasons why Vitamin K is rarely deficient in a human diet is because Vitamin K is continually recycled in our cells.

Warfarin and other coumarin drugs block the action of the Vitamin K epoxide reductase. This results in decreased concentrations of Vitamin K and Vitamin K hydroquinone in the tissues, such that the carboxylation reaction catalyzed by the glutamyl carboxylase is inefficient. This results in the production of clotting factors with inadequate Gla. Without Gla on the amino termini of these factors, they no longer bind stably to the blood vessel endothelium and cannot activate clotting to allow formation of a clot during tissue injury. As it is impossible to predict what dose of Warfarin will give the desired degree of suppression of the clotting, Warfarin treatment must be carefully monitored to avoid over-dosing. See Warfarin.

Methods of assessment

Prothrombin time test:

Measures the time required for blood to clot

Blood sample mixed with citric acid and put in a fibrometer.

Delayed clot formation indicates a deficiency.

Unfortunately insensitive to mild deficiency as the values do not change until the concentration of prothrombin in the blood has declined by at least 50 percent

Plasma Phylloquinone:

Was found to be positively correlated with phylloquinone intake in elderly British women, but not men

However an article by Schurges et al. reported no correlation between FFQ and plasma phylloquinone

Urinary γ-carboxyglutamic acid:

Urinary Gla responds to changes in dietary Vitamin K intake.

Several days are required before any change can be observed.

In a study by Booth et al. increases of phylloquinone intakes from 100 μg to between 377–417 μg for 5 days did ''not'' induce a significant change

Response may be age-specific

Gla-proteins

At present, the following human Gla-containing proteins have been characterized to the level of primary structure: the blood coagulation factors II (prothrombin), VII, IX, and X, the anticoagulant proteins C and S, and the Factor X-targeting protein Z. The bone Gla-protein osteocalcin, the calcification inhibiting matrix gla protein (MGP), the cell growth regulating growth arrest specific gene 6 protein (Gas6), and the four transmembrane Gla proteins (TMGPs) the function of which is at present unknown. Gas6 can function as a growth factor that activates the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase and stimulates cell proliferation or prevents apoptosis in some cells. In all cases in which their function was known, the presence of the Gla-residues in these proteins turned out to be essential for functional activity.

Gla-proteins are known to occur in a wide variety of vertebrates: mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish. The venom of a number of Australian snakes acts by activating the human blood clotting system. Remarkably, in some cases activation is accomplished by snake Gla-containing enzymes that bind to the endothelium of human blood vessels and catalyze the conversion of procoagulant clotting factors into activated ones, leading to unwanted and potentially deadly clotting.

Another interesting class of invertebrate Gla-containing proteins is synthesized by the fish-hunting snail ''Conus geographus''. These snails produce a venom containing hundreds of neuro-active peptides, or conotoxins, which is sufficiently toxic to kill an adult human. Several of the conotoxins contain 2–5 Gla residues.

Function in bacteria

Many bacteria, such as ''Escherichia coli'' found in the large intestine, can synthesize Vitamin K₂ (menaquinone), but not Vitamin K₁ (phylloquinone). In these bacteria, menaquinone will transfer two electrons between two different small molecules, in a process called anaerobic respiration. For example, a small molecule with an excess of electrons (also called an electron donor) such as lactate, formate, or NADH, with the help of an enzyme, will pass two electrons to a menaquinone. The menaquinone, with the help of another enzyme, will in turn transfer these 2 electrons to a suitable oxidant, such fumarate or nitrate (also called an electron acceptor). Adding two electrons to fumarate or nitrate will convert the molecule to succinate or nitrite + water, respectively. Some of these reactions generate a cellular energy source, ATP, in a manner similar to eukaryotic cell aerobic respiration, except that the final electron acceptor is not molecular oxygen, but say fumarate or nitrate (In aerobic respiration, the final oxidant is molecular oxygen (O₂) , which accepts four electrons from an electron donor such as NADH to be converted to water.) ''Escherichia coli'' can carry out aerobic respiration and menaquninone-mediated anaerobic respiration.