Vitamin C (including the GLO enzyme), or start with inositol and get to ascorbic acid via L-galactonic acid to L-galactonolactone. Ascorbic acid is a common enzymatic cofactor in mammals used in the synthesis of collagen, as well as a powerful reducing agent capable of rapidly scavenging a number of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Given that ascorbate has these important functions, it is surprising that the ability to synthesize this molecule has not always been conserved. In fact, anthropoid primates, "Cavia porcellus" (guinea pigs), teleost fishes, most bats, and some Passeriform birds have all independently lost the ability to internally synthesize Vitamin C
Chemistry of ascorbic acid from animal adrenal glands. In 1932 Charles Glen King confirmed that it was indeed the antiscorbutic factor. In 1933, sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, working with samples of "hexuronic acid" that Szent-Györgyi had isolated from paprika and sent him in the previous year, deduced the correct structure and optical-isomeric nature of the compound, and in 1934 reported its first synthesis. In reference to the compound's antiscorbutic properties, Haworth and Szent-Györgyi proposed to rename it "a-scorbic acid" for the compound, and later specifically -ascorbic acid. Because of their work, in 1937 the Nobel Prizes for chemistry and medicine were awarded to