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Long-sought mediator of vitamin K recycling discovered

The identity of the enzyme that enables vitamin K to combat the adverse side effects of a drug called warfarin has been long sought. Analysis of a type of cell death called ferroptosis has now unexpectedly solved the mystery.
  1. Nathan P. Ward

    1. Nathan P. Ward is in the Department of Cancer Physiology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida 33612, USA.

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  2. Gina M. DeNicola

    1. Gina M. DeNicola is in the Department of Cancer Physiology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida 33612, USA.

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Vitamin K was discovered by the biochemist Henrik Dam in 1936, and named after its role in promoting blood clotting, or koagulation, in Dam’s native Danish1. The vitamin is a type of molecule called a naphthoquinone. It can exist in multiple forms, but only one supports clotting — the ‘reduced hydroquinone’ form, known as VKH2. Levels of VKH2 are maintained in the body by the enzyme vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKOR), which is part of the major (canonical) vitamin K recycling pathway. Writing in Nature, Mishima et al.2 pin down the identity of a different reductase enzyme that has a role in another crucial vitamin K recycling pathway.

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Nature 608, 673-674 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02001-6

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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