Vitamin A problems in marine research

Abstract

The subject of this paper will appear somewhat limited in contrast to many of the other contributions to the symposium. It is, however, an attempt to show how one line of biochemical research on marine animals has developed. Work on the occurrence of vitamin A and its precursors in the various links in marine food chains has been going on in the U nit for Biochemical Research bearing on Fisheries’ Problems at Shinfield for over 10 years. Similar investigations begun there more recently are concerned with the possible roles of vitamin B 12 in marine productivity and of amino acids in osmoregulation and the nutrition of plankton. In 1947 groups of biochemists working in California (Mattson, Mehl & Deuel 1947), Liverpool (Glover, Goodwin & Morton 1947) and Shinfield (Thompson, Ganguly & Kon 1947) found th a t in mammals the site of conversion to vitamin A of its principal precursor β-carotene (see figure 22) was the lumen of the small intestine. The attention of the Shinfield group (Thompson, Ganguly & Kon 1949) was drawn to the work of Wagner (1939) who claimed th a t whales caught near the Faeroes were converting β-carotene in their crustacean food or ‘krill’ to vitamin A during its passage along the intestine.