B12(Cobalamin)

B12 in Canada is supplied by Horizon Peptides as a solution in sealed 10 ml research bottles, available singly or in 3-bottle and 5-bottle packs. B12, or cobalamin, is a cobalt-containing coenzyme studied in enzymatic and metabolic research models.

B12 is structurally remarkable among research materials: it is built around a corrin ring with a cobalt atom at the centre, giving the molecular formula C63H88CoN14O14P and a weight of 1355.37. It is the only cobalt-containing molecule in this catalogue.

That cobalt centre is what makes it chemically distinctive. Very few biological molecules incorporate the metal at all, and the carbon-cobalt bond found in some of its forms is among the rare examples of such a bond occurring in biochemistry.

Research using it concerns cobalamin-dependent enzyme systems and one-carbon metabolism, where it acts as a cofactor rather than as a signalling molecule. That places it in a different category from the receptor-binding peptides stocked alongside it.