TITLE:
Characterization of Corrinoid Compounds in the Edible Cyanobacterium Nostoc flagelliforme the Hair Vegetable
AUTHORS:
Fei Teng, Tomohiro Bito, Shigeo Takenaka, Hiroyuki Takenaka, Yuji Yamaguchi, Yukinori Yabuta, Fumio Watanabe
KEYWORDS:
Edible Cyanobacteria; Hair Vegetable; Nostoc flagelliforme; Pseudovitamin B12; Vitamin B12
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.5 No.4,
February
8,
2014
ABSTRACT: Vitamin B12 contents in the edible cyanobacterium Nostoc
flagelliforme, also known as
hair vegetable, were assayed
using a microbiological method. We detected high vitamin B12 contents in samples of naturally grown cells (109.2 ± 18.5 μg/100g dry weight) and cultured cells (120.2 ±
53.6 μg/100g dry weight). However, commercially available hair vegetable
samples, which comprised fake substitutes and Nostoc, had variable contents (4.8 - 101.6 μg/100g
dry weight) because concomitant fake items contain very low vitamin B12 contents. To evaluate whether natural
and cultured N. flagelliforme samples contained vitamin B12 or pseudovitamin B12, corrinoid compounds were purified and
identified as pseudovitamin B12 (approximately 72%) and vitamin B12 (approximately 28%) using silica gel 60 TLC bioautography and LC/MS. The
results suggested that N. flagelliforme contains substantial amounts of
pseudovitamin B12, which is inactive in humans.