Biotin: From Nutrition to Therapeutics.
Although frank symptomatic biotin deficiency is rare, some evidence suggests that marginal biotin deficiency occurs spontaneously in a substantial proportion of women during normal human pregnancy and might confer an increased risk of birth defects. Herein I review 1) advances in assessing biotin status, including the relation between acylcarnitine excretion and biotin status; 2) recent studies of biotin status in pregnancy; 3) advances in understanding the role of biotin in gene expression and the potential roles of biotinylated proteins that are neither histones nor carboxylases; and 4) novel large-dose biotin supplementation as therapy for multiple sclerosis. The review concludes with a summary of recent studies that have reported potentially dangerous erroneous results in individuals consuming large amounts of biotin for measurements of various plasma hormones for common clinical assays that use streptavidin-biotin technology.
['Mock|Donald M|DM|']
D000818:Animals D001710:Biotin D019921:Biotinylation D002331:Carnitine D005260:Female D015870:Gene Expression D006728:Hormones D006801:Humans D009103:Multiple Sclerosis D009752:Nutritional Status D011247:Pregnancy D011248:Pregnancy Complications D019809:Streptavidin D014803:Vitamin B Complex
biotin gene expression multiple sclerosis hormone assays interference nutritional supplements