noun

• A synthetic yellow compound related to menaquinone, used to treat hemorrhage.

  Also called "vitamin K3" (see vitamin K)

  Alternative name: 2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone; chemical formula: C₁₁H₈O₂

  ‘This medium is prepared twice each week and is complemented with 8% sheep blood, menadione, and gentamicin, making this medium selective for anaerobes.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The K vitamins exist naturally as K 1 in green vegetables and K 2 produced by intestinal bacteria and K 3 is synthetic menadione.’
  • ‘After absorption, menadione is thought to become alkylated into biologically active isoprenylated menaquinones.’
  • ‘Hepatoma-bearing rats receiving intraperitoneal injections of menadione (10 mg / 2mL weekly for four weeks) demonstrated an increased survival rate of 60 days compared to 17 days for controls (five of 16 lived longer than controls).’
  • ‘Using concentrations that had no effect on cell growth, we found that menadione had no significant effect on recombination under the conditions tested in either the wild-type or BER mutant backgrounds.’