Vitamin B12 , one of the ingredients in a healthy diet, becomes a kind of "gymnast" when it enters the body, according to research by scientists from the University of Michigan Health System and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (MIT), in the United States.
In a recent paper published in the journal Nature, researchers explain how, after obtaining the first complete three-dimensional images of B12 and its associated molecules, they found that they twist and twist as part of a crucial reaction called methyltransfer (or methyl transfer). . The reaction is vital both in the cells of the human body and in the cells of bacteria that consume carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, including microbes that live in our intestines of humans and that aid in digestion.
Stephen Ragsdale, co-author of the work, has pointed out that it is important to understand this transfer reaction because of its importance to human health. It also has implications for the development of new fuels that could become alternative energy sources.
