NAD, as well as its phosphorylated form, NADP, are best known as electron carriers and co-substrates of various redox reactions. As such they participate in approximately one quarter of all reactions listed in the reaction database KEGG. In metabolic pathway analysis, the total amount of NAD is usually assumed to be constant. That means that changes in the redox state might be considered, but concentration changes of the NAD moiety are usually neglected. However, a growing number of NAD-consuming reactions have been identified, showing that this assumption does not hold true in general. NAD-consuming reactions are common characteristics of NAD+-dependent signalling pathways and include mono- and poly-ADP-ribosylation of proteins, NAD+-dependent deacetylation by sirtuins and the formation of messenger molecules such as cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR) and nicotinic acid (NA)-ADP (NAADP). NAD-consuming reactions are thus involved in major signalling and gene regulation pathways such as DNA-repair or regulation of enzymes central in metabolism. All known NAD+-dependent signalling processes include the release of nicotinamide (Nam). Thus cellular NAD pools need to be constantly replenished, mostly by recycling Nam to NAD+. This process is, among others, regulated by the circadian clock, causing complex dynamic changes in NAD concentration. As disturbances in NAD homoeostasis are associated with a large number of diseases ranging from cancer to diabetes, it is important to better understand the dynamics of NAD metabolism to develop efficient pharmacological invention strategies to target this pathway.
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December 2015
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Review Article|
November 27 2015
Dynamics of NAD-metabolism: everything but constant
Christiane A. Opitz;
Christiane A. Opitz
*Brain Cancer Metabolism Group, German Cancer Research Center Heidelberg DKFZ, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
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Ines Heiland
Ines Heiland
1
†Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT Arctic University of Norway, Naturfagbygget, Dramsveien 201, 9037 Tromsø, Norway
1To whom correspondence should be should be addressed to (emailines.heiland@uit.no).
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
July 03 2015
Online ISSN: 1470-8752
Print ISSN: 0300-5127
© 2015 Authors; published by Portland Press Limited
2015
Biochem Soc Trans (2015) 43 (6): 1127–1132.
Article history
Received:
July 03 2015
Citation
Christiane A. Opitz, Ines Heiland; Dynamics of NAD-metabolism: everything but constant. Biochem Soc Trans 1 December 2015; 43 (6): 1127–1132. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/BST20150133
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