- Pantothenic acid
- Pantothenic acid is vitamin B5, one of the less well known B vitamins, perhaps because it is widely distributed in nature. Pantothenic acid is virtually ubiquitous. It is present in foods as diverse as poultry, soybeans, yogurt, and sweet potatoes. No naturally occurring disease due to a deficiency of pantothenic acid has been identified, due to the plentifulness of this vitamin. An experimental deficiency of pantothenic acid has, however, been created by administering an antagonist to pantothenic acid. This experiment produced disease, thereby demonstrating that pantothenic acid is essential to humans. Pantothenic acid was discovered in 1940.
* * *The β-alanine amide of pantoic acid. A growth substance widely distributed in plant and animal tissues, and essential for growth of a number of organisms; deficiency in diet causes a dermatitis in chicks and rats and achromotrichia in the latter; a precursor to coenzyme A. SYN: antidermatitis factor.
* * *
pan·to·then·ic acid .pant-ə-.then-ik- n a viscous oily acid C9H17NO5 that belongs to the vitamin B complex, occurs usu. combined (as in coenzyme A) in all living tissues and esp. liver, is made synthetically, and is essential for the growth of various animals and microorganisms* * *
a B vitamin that is a constituent of coenzyme A. It plays an important role in the transfer of acetyl groups in the body. Pantothenic acid is widely distributed in food and a deficiency is therefore unlikely to occur.* * *
pan·to·then·ic ac·id (pan″to-thenґik) the amide of β-alanine and pantoic acid, a B complex vitamin that is a constituent of coenzyme A; it is distributed ubiquitously in foods, and a deficiency syndrome has not been demonstrated in humans except by experimental administration of the pantothenic acid antagonist ω-methylpantothenic acid.
Medical dictionary. 2011.
