Kinetics controlling bioreductive drug selectivity towards hypoxic cells

6 Kinetics controlling bioreductive drug selectivity towards hypoxic cells 

There has been must less work directed to exploiting endogenous or targeted oxidative reactivity in tumours, compared to work on bioreductive drugs. Glucose oxidase or hypoxanthine/xanthine oxidase has been explored as sources of hydrogen peroxide or superoxide radicals [154,155], and the effects on tumour growth of ischaemia/reperfusion (which leads to a superoxide burst ) has been studied [156,157]. 

It was expected that peroxyl radical generation in cells (or extracellularly, at the interface with the cytoplasmic membrane) might stimulate lipid peroxidation and so be damaging. In the event, biological effects were observed, but lipid peroxidation seems not to be the most important. 

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