Lactoflavin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A yellow water-soluble B vitamin essential for energy metabolism, also known by the older name for riboflavin
2. An older name for the vitamin B2 that gives milk and certain foods their yellowish tint and supports cell function
3. The vitamin B2 compound, a yellow pigment important to enzymes that help the body release energy from food

Etymology: Lactoflavin is simply another name for riboflavin, vitamin B2, and the name comes from the milk it was first isolated from. Its story begins with the yellow-green fluorescence of milk whey, which chemists noticed long before they knew what caused it. The compound was isolated from milk and the name combines Latin "lac," meaning milk, with "flavus," meaning yellow, a reference to the pigment's colour. The vitamin was later shown to be the same substance as the growth factor known as vitamin B2, and the older milk-based name fell out of use in favour of riboflavin, which was built from "ribose" and the same "flavus." Lactoflavin itself is therefore a historical synonym rather than a separate compound, and it survives mainly in older chemical and nutritional literature.

Synonyms: riboflavin