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Vitamin B12

Class of vitamins

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin or extrinsic factor, is a water-soluble vitamin involved in metabolism. One of eight B vitamins, it serves as a vital cofactor in DNA synthesis and both fatty acid and amino acid metabolism. It plays an essential role in the nervous system by supporting myelin synthesis and is critical for the maturation of red blood cells in the bone marrow. Animals require B12 but plants do not, relying instead on alternative enzymatic pathways.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vitamin B12” is class of vitamins. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Vitamin, Class and vitamins, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 78-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Vitamin, Class and vitamins is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “class of vitamins” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
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  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Vitamin B12”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Vitamin B12 primary sources, Vitamin B12 archive and Vitamin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Vitamin B12” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.