Dietary Marine-Derived Tocopherol has a Higher Biological Availability in Mice Relative to Alpha-Tocopherol

The biologic availability of two kinds of tocomonoenols, marine-derived tocopherol (MDT) and alpha-tocomonoenol, was investigated in ICR mice. Vitamin E-deficient ICR mice were fed MDT and alpha-tocomonoenol together with alpha-tocopherol, beta-tocopherol, gamma-tocopherol, and delta-tocopherol, and storage in liver, spleen, lung, and brain was quantified using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The vitamin E relative biologic availability (VE-RBA) in liver was 100 for alpha-tocopherol, 26 +/- A 3 for beta-tocopherol, 4 +/- A 2 for gamma-tocopherol, not detected for delta-tocopherol, 49 +/- A 6 for MDT, and 30 +/- A 7 for alpha-tocomonoenol. The VE-RBA in brain was 100 for alpha-tocopherol, 5 +/- A 2 for beta-tocopherol, not detected for gamma-tocopherol and delta-tocopherol, 8 +/- A 1 for MDT, and 4 +/- A 1 for alpha-tocomonoenol. Tocopherols and tocomonoenols did not accumulate in the spleen or lung. MDT and alpha-tocomonoenol had high VE-RBA values. The VE-RBA value for MDT was much higher than that for beta-tocopherol.