α-Tocotrienol quinone modulates oxidative stress response and the biochemistry of aging

  • Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2011 Jun 15;21(12):3693-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2011.04.085.
William D Shrader  1 ,  Akiko Amagata ,  Adam Barnes ,  Gregory M Enns ,  Andrew Hinman ,  Orion Jankowski ,  Viktoria Kheifets ,  Ryo Komatsuzaki ,  Edgar Lee ,  Paul Mollard ,  Katsuyuki Murase ,  Alfredo A Sadun ,  Martin Thoolen ,  Kieron Wesson ,  Guy Miller
Affiliations
PMID: 21600768 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2011.04.085
Abstract

We report that α-tocotrienol quinone (ATQ3) is a metabolite of α-tocotrienol, and that ATQ3 is a potent cellular protectant against oxidative stress and aging. ATQ3 is orally bioavailable, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and has demonstrated clinical response in inherited mitochondrial disease in open label studies. ATQ3 activity is dependent upon reversible 2e-redox-cycling. ATQ3 may represent a broader class of unappreciated dietary-derived phytomolecular redox motifs that digitally encode biochemical data using redox state as a means to sense and transfer information essential for cellular function.