Chemical/oxidative stress

Okada et al. examined the effects of TBT on cellular content of glutathione (GSH) in rat thymocites using a flow cytometer and 5-chloromethylfluorescein diacetate, a fluorescent probe for monitoring the change in the cellular content of GSH. TBT at nanomolar concentrations reduced the cellular content of GSH. There is an important implication on the TBT-induced depletion of cellular GSH since GSH has an important role in protecting the cells against oxidative stress and chemical and metal intoxications. TBT-induced decrease in cellular content of GSH in thymocytes may increase the vulnerability of the immune system. ° ... 

These data demonstrate that both GSH and GSSG have profound effects on Na/K ATPase activity and may act in concert to modify enzyme activity during oxidant stress. However, it should be recognized that the steric conformation of an isolated enzyme preparation in a chemically buffered solution may be considerably different to the native enzyme located in a dynamic lipid bilayer. For this reason, these investigations have been extended to include a variety of preparations in which the Na/K pump is in its native environment. 

Trush, M.A. and Kensler, T.W. (1991). An overview of the relationship between oxidative stress and chemical carcinogenesis. Free Rad. Biol. Med. 10, 210-219. 

For many decades, the standard technique for measuring carotenoids has been high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). This time consuming and expensive chemical method works well for the measurement of carotenoids in serum, but it is difficult to perform in human tissue since it requires biopsies of relatively large tissue volumes. Additionally, serum antioxidant measurements are more indicative of short-term dietary intakes of antioxidants rather than steady-state accumulations in body tissues exposed to external oxidative stress factors such as smoking and UV-light exposure. 

Another peculiarity of the study is that the use of a biological system has allowed the authors to hypothesize a possible mechanism of action of the leachate as a mixture, hypothesis that could have been drafted on the basis of the only knowledge derived by chemical analysis. Researchers suggest that leachate inhibits cell proliferation at low doses probably inducing a reversible cell cycle arrest that becomes irreversible at high doses, probably due to leachate-induced oxidative stress. This activity is mainly due to the chemical compounds extracted in the aqueous phase. Similar effects were noticed by previous investigations on other human cells (human peripheral blood lymphocytes and a human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7) [31, 32], supporting the hypothesis that cells that survive the initial insult from leachate constituents maintains the potential to proliferate until the effects on cell metabolism lead to death. 

Hmbach, L.K., Wick, P., Manser, P., Grass, R.N., Bruinink, A., and Stark, W.J. (2007) Exposure of engineered nanopartides to human lung epithelial cells influence of chemical composition and catalytic activity on oxidative stress. Environmental Science and Technology,... 

Phytochemicals or phytonutrients are bioactive substances that can be found in foods derived from plants and are not essential for life the human body is not able to produce them. Recently, some of their characteristics, mainly their antioxidant capacity, have given rise to research related to their protective properties on health and the mechanisms of action involved. Flavonoids are a diverse group of phenolic phytochemicals (Fig. 6.1) that are natural pigments. One function of flavonoids is to protect plants from oxidative stress, such as ultraviolet rays, environmental pollution, and chemical substances. Other relevant biological roles of these pigments are discussed in other chapters of this book. 

The products formed during lipid peroxidation include unsaturated aldehydes, such as 4-hydroxynonenal. Their quantification is of great interest because of their extremely reactive and cytotoxic properties. This extreme reactivity and metabolic conversion, however, may make them unsuitable as test analytes for in vivo antioxidant activity studies except at high levels of oxidative stress. Furthermore, simple chemical tests such as the TBARS (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) and LPO-586 (colorimetric... 

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