Intracellular distribution and some additional studies of metabolic fate of vitamin K homologs were studied by isotopic tracer with tritium or carbon-14 labeled vitamin K homologs, vitamin K
1, K
2(20) and K
3, to obtain the information about their site of action in the animal tissue. There are several reports on the intracellular distribution of K
1 but no clear result has been obtained about the incorporation site of vitamin K
1 in the animal cell and no report has been found in the case of K
2(20), which is estimated to be a physiologically active type of K homologs in the animal. In our present experiment, K
1 was found to be concentrated in the mitochondrial fraction after a long period of time and K
2(20) was faster incorporated in the liver and heart muscle than K
1 and showed remarkably higher affinity to the mitochondrial fraction. K
3 which is less lipophilic than the other two homologs, was less incorporated into the both tissues and stayed in the supernatant fraction. From these observations, it was revealed that K
1 and K
2 which have a long isoprenoid side chain have a higher mitochondrial affinity like other isoprenoid vitamins and the higher affinity of vitamin K to the mitochondrial fraction suggest the possibility of their function in some regulation process in mitochondria other than blood coagulation protein synthesis.
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