The decades that followed saw the discovery of additional VKDPs showing wide tissue distribution and functional scope, the latest members having been identified in 2008. Important studies relating to the role of vitamin K in sphingolipid synthesis were also underway at that time and would pave the way to further work 15 years later. The 1970s also saw an important breakthrough with respect to our understanding of the vitamin K cycle and marked the discovery of the first bone VKDP, osteocalcin. This discovery not only provided the basis to understanding earlier findings about prothrombin but later led to the discovery of vitamin K-dependent proteins (VKDPs) not involved in hemostasis. However, major progress in our understanding of the mechanisms of action of vitamin K came in the 1970s with the discovery of γ-carboxyglutamic acid (Gla), a new amino acid common to all vitamin K proteins. In the early 1940s, the first vitamin K antagonists were discovered and crystallized with one of its derivatives, warfarin, still being widely used in today’s clinical setting. In the decade that followed, the principal K vitamers, phylloquinone and the menaquinones, were isolated and fully characterized. Vitamin K was discovered fortuitously in 1929 as part of experiments on sterol metabolism and was immediately associated with blood coagulation.
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