Application of Partial Hydrogenation for the Generation of Minor Tocochromanol Homologs and Functional Evaluation of Hydrogenated Tocotrienol-rich Vitamin E Oil in Diabetic Obese Mice

Recent research has identified minor homologs of vitamin E with one or two double bonds in the side-chain, namely tocomonoenol (Ti) and tocodienol (T2), in natural products. We first explored the effectiveness of partial hydrogenation for generating minor tocochromanols from tocotrienol (T3). During hydrogenation with pure alpha-T3 as a substrate, the side-chain was partially saturated in a time-dependent manner, and a large amount of alpha-T1 and alpha-T2 was obtained. To investigate the beneficial effects of the hydrogenated product, we fed diabetic obese KK-A(y) mice with a hydrogenated T3 mixture (HT3). Feeding HT3 revealed tissue-specific accumulation of tocochromanols, ameliorated hyperglycemia and improved ratio of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol to total cholesterol in serum, with invariant bode weight and fat mass. Hence, we propose that hydrogenation is a useful method for generating T1 and T2 homologs, which can be applied to explore the structure-related function of tocochromanols.

Automated summary

Research has identified minor homologs of vitamin E, Ti and T2, which can be generated from tocotrienol through partial hydrogenation. Feeding the hydrogenated product can ameliorate hyperglycemia and improve lipid metabolism abnormalities.