Meta-Biol

• Pathways

Vitamin K is a required co-factor in a single metabolic reaction, the gamma-carboxylation of glutamate residues of proteins catalyzed by GGCX (gamma-carboxyglutamyl carboxylase). Substrates of GGCX include blood clotting factors, osteocalcin (OCN), and growth arrest-specific protein 6 (GAS6) (Brenner et al. 1998). Vitamin K is derived from green leafy vegetables as phylloquinone and is synthesized by gut flora as menaquinone-7. These molecules are taken up by intestinal enterocytes with other lipids, packaged into chylomicrons, and delivered via the lymphatic and blood circulation to tissues of the body, notably hepatocytes and osteoblasts, via processes of lipoprotein trafficking (Shearer & Newman 2014; Shearer et al. 2012) described elsewhere in Reactome.

In these tissues, menadiol (reduced vitamin K3) reacts with geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate to form MK4 (vitamin K hydroquinone), the form of the vitamin required as cofactor for gamma-carboxylation of protein glutamate residues (Hirota et al. 2013). The gamma-carboxylation reactions, annotated elsewhere in Reactome as a part of protein metabolism, convert MK4 to its epoxide form, which is inactive as a cofactor. Two related enzymes, VKORC1 and VKORCL1, can each catalyze the reduction of MK4 epoxide to active MK4. VKORC1 activity is essential for normal operation of the blood clotting cascade and for osteocalcin function (Ferron et al. 2015). A physiological function for VKORCL1 has not yet been definitively established (Hammed et al. 2013; Tie et al. 2014).

Vitamins are a diverse group of organic compounds, classified according to their solubility, either fat-soluble or water-soluble, that are either not synthesized or synthesized only in limited amounts by human cells. They are required in small amounts in the diet and have distinct biochemical roles, often as coenzymes (cofactors). The physiological processes dependent on vitamin-requiring reactions include many aspects of intermediary metabolism, vision, bone formation, and blood coagulation, and vitamin deficiencies are associated with a correspondingly diverse and severe group of diseases. Metabolic pathways for water-soluble B group and C vitamins, and for fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K are annotated in Reactome, covering processes that convert dietary forms of these molecules into active forms, and that regenerate active forms of vitamin cofactors consumed in other metabolic processes.

Metabolic processes in human cells generate energy through the oxidation of molecules consumed in the diet and mediate the synthesis of diverse essential molecules not taken in the diet as well as the inactivation and elimination of toxic ones generated endogenously or present in the extracellular environment. The processes of energy metabolism can be classified into two groups according to whether they involve carbohydrate-derived or lipid-derived molecules, and within each group it is useful to distinguish processes that mediate the breakdown and oxidation of these molecules to yield energy from ones that mediate their synthesis and storage as internal energy reserves. Synthetic reactions are conveniently grouped by the chemical nature of the end products, such as nucleotides, amino acids and related molecules, and porphyrins. Detoxification reactions (biological oxidations) are likewise conveniently classified by the chemical nature of the toxin.

At the same time, all of these processes are tightly integrated. Intermediates in reactions of energy generation are starting materials for biosyntheses of amino acids and other compounds, broad-specificity oxidoreductase enzymes can be involved in both detoxification reactions and biosyntheses, and hormone-mediated signaling processes function to coordinate the operation of energy-generating and energy-storing reactions and to couple these to other biosynthetic processes.