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World J Clin Cases. Jun 26, 2021; 9(18): 4506-4519
Published online Jun 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i18.4506
Roles of vitamin A in the regulation of fatty acid synthesis
Fu-Chen Yang, Feng Xu, Tian-Nan Wang, Guo-Xun Chen
Fu-Chen Yang, Food College, Jiangsu Food and Pharmaceutical College, Huaian 223003, Jiangsu Province, China
Feng Xu, Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China
Tian-Nan Wang, Guo-Xun Chen, Department of Nutrition, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37909, United States
Author contributions: All authors contributed to literature search and manuscript writing; Yang FC and Chen GX initiated the design and outline of the manuscript.
Supported by the Financial Support of the Overseas Training Program for Outstanding Young and Middle-Aged Teachers in Universities in Jiangsu Province, China (to Yang FC).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Guo-Xun Chen, PhD, Associate Professor, Doctor, Department of Nutrition, The University of Tennessee, 229 Jessie Harris Building, 1215 West Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37909, United States. gchen6@utk.edu
Received: February 6, 2021
Peer-review started: February 6, 2021
First decision: March 16, 2021
Revised: March 25, 2021
Accepted: April 21, 2021
Article in press: April 21, 2021
Published online: June 26, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Recent studies have shown that vitamin A plays a role in the regulation of glucose and fatty acid metabolism. Vitamin A status, its supplementation, and the treatment with its metabolite, retinoic acid, have been shown to regulate the activities, and the expression levels of protein and mRNA of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase, fatty acid elongases, and fatty acid desaturases in the animal tissues and cells. Systematic evaluations of the roles of vitamin A in the fatty acid metabolism are needed for the treatment and prevention of metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.