The human diet contains a great variety of natural mutagens and carcinogens, as well as many natural antimutagens and anticarcinogens. Many of these mutagens and carcinogens may act through the generation of oxygen radicals. Oxygen radicals may also play a major role as endogenous initiators of degenerative processes, such as DNA damage and mutation (and promotion), that may be related to cancer, heart disease, and aging. Dietary intake of natural antioxidants could be an important aspect of the body’s defense mechanism against these agents. Many antioxidants are being identified as anticarcinogens. Characterizing and optimizing such defense systems may be an important part of a strategy of minimizing cancer and other age-related diseases.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/221/4617/1256.full.pdf

Dietary carcinogens and anticarcinogens Oxygen radicals and degenerative diseases

The mechanism of lipid peroxidation and the manner in which antioxidants function is reviewed. beta-Carotene is a purported anticancer agent, which is believed by some to have antioxidant action of a radical-trapping type. However, definitive experimental support for such action has been lacking. New experiments in vitro show that beta-carotene belongs to a previously unknown class of biological antioxidants. Specifically, it exhibits good radical-trapping antioxidant behavior only at partial pressures of oxygen significantly less than 150 torr, the pressure of oxygen in normal air. Such low oxygen partial pressures are found in most tissues under physiological conditions. At higher oxygen pressures, beta-carotene loses its antioxidant activity and shows an autocatalytic, prooxidant effect, particularly at relatively high concentrations. Similar oxygen-pressure-dependent behavior may be shown by other compounds containing many conjugated double bonds.

Beta-carotene: an unusual type of lipid antioxidant

The Role of Oxidative Stress in the Pathogenesis of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Dithiocarbamates and iron chelators were recently considered for the treatment of AIDS and neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we show that dithiocarbamates and metal chelators can potently block the activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kappa B), a transcription factor involved in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) expression, signaling, and immediate early gene activation during inflammatory processes. Using cell cultures, the pyrrolidine derivative of dithiocarbamate (PDTC) was investigated in detail. Micromolar amounts of PDTC reversibly suppressed the release of the inhibitory subunit I kappa B from the latent cytoplasmic form of NF-kappa B in cells treated with phorbol ester, interleukin 1, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Other DNA binding activities and the induction of AP-1 by phorbol ester were not affected. The antioxidant PDTC also blocked the activation of NF-kappa B by bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), suggesting a role of oxygen radicals in the intracellular signaling of LPS. This idea was supported by demonstrating that treatment of pre-B and B cells with LPS induced the production of O2- and H2O2. PDTC prevented specifically the kappa B-dependent transactivation of reporter genes under the control of the HIV-1 long terminal repeat and simian virus 40 enhancer. The results from this study lend further support to the idea that oxygen radicals play an important role in the activation of NF-kappa B and HIV-1.

Dithiocarbamates as potent inhibitors of nuclear factor kappa B activation in intact cells.

Enhanced cellular oxidant stress by the interaction of advanced glycation end products with their receptors/binding proteins.

In addition to its participation in a variety of other biochemical reactions, glutathione (GSH) is a major antioxidant. It is regularly generated intracellularly from its oxidized form by glutathione reductase activity that is coupled with a series of interrelated reactions. Synthesis of GSH also takes place intracellularly by a two-step reaction, the first of which is catalyzed by rate-limiting gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase activity. Intracellular substrates for GSH are provided both by direct amino acid transport and by a gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase reaction that salvages circulating GSH by coupling the gamma-glutamyl moiety to a suitable amino acid acceptor for transport into the cell. Although the liver is a net synthesizer of circulating GSH, organs such as the kidney salvage GSH through the gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase reaction. Intracellular GSH may be consumed by GSH transferase reactions that conjugate GSH with certain xenobiotics. Elevation of cellular GSH levels in cultured cells in response to hyperoxia or electrophilic agents such as diethylmaleate is coupled with an increase in activity of the Xc- transport system for the amino acids cystine and glutamate. Strategies may be developed for protection against oxidant injury by enhancement of transport systems for precursor amino acids of GSH or by providing substrate that circumvents feedback inhibition of GSH synthesis.

Regulation of cellular glutathione.

Dye-sensitized photo-oxidations of liposomes are inhibited by the presence of carotenoids in the membrane. Some carotenoid bleaching occurs during the reaction. It was shown that carotenoids are capable of inhibiting free-radical-induced lipid peroxidation in liposomes as well as singlet oxygen-induced lipid peroxidation. There is little direct effect of lipid peroxides on carotenoid bleaching during the photo-oxidative reactions. The carotenoid bleaching observed during the dye-photosensitized oxidations of the liposomes appears to be due to interactions between the carotenoid pigments and either radical intermediates from type I reactions or direct chemical reaction with singlet oxygen in a type II reaction. It was concluded that carotenoid pigments function as protective agents by quenching triplet sensitizers, singlet oxygen, and radical intermediates.

Interaction of oxygen and oxy-radicals with carotenoids.

ALTHOUGH oxygen therapy has been of clear benefit in many clinical settings, it also carries a risk of tissue damage. All tissues of the body can be injured by sufficiently high oxygen concentrations, but the lung is exposed directly to the highest partial pressure of inspired oxygen. The precise concentration of oxygen that is toxic to the lung probably depends on a large number of variables in the exposed person, including age, nutrition, endocrine status, and previous exposure to oxygen or other oxidants.1 2 3 Hyperbaric oxygen accelerates the effects of oxygen toxicity and also damages the central nervous system, probably because . . .

Normobaric oxygen toxicity of the lung

Rats fed 3% casein diets for 6 days showed an increased susceptibility to greater than 98% oxygen [mean survival time 46.9 +/- 4.1 (SD) h] compared with animals fed 25% casein diets (mean survival time 60 +/- 5 h). The 3% casein diet did not reduce the responses to hyperoxia of lung glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione reductase (NAD(P)H), which maintain tissue levels of reduced glutathione or lung superoxide dismutase levels. While supplementation of the 3% casein diet with the sulfur-containing amino acids (cysteine, cystine, or methionine) prevented the increased oxygen toxicity, supplementation with leucine, a nonsulfur-containing amino acid, had no effect on potentiation of toxicity. Animals fed the unsupplemented 3% casein diet failed to show an elevation of lung glutathione in response to hyperoxia. When the 3% casein diet was supplemented with cysteine, total lung glutathione levels increased normally during oxygen exposure. Supplementation of the 25% protein diet with cysteine did not further protect these animals. We conclude that potentiation of oxygen toxicity by dietary protein deficiency in the rat is due to the low sulfur-containing amino acid content of the diet; the mechanism of increased toxicity by hyperoxia is probably related to an inability to increase glutathione levels due to a shortage of the cysteine component of the glutathione tripeptide.

Potentiation of oxygen toxicity in rats by dietary protein or amino acid deficiency

Diethylmaleate (DEM) decreases glutathione (GSH) levels in various organs by enzymatic conjugation with reduced GSH catalyzed by GSH transferase. We have examined levels of GSH, glutathione reducta...

Susan M. Deneke

Papers

Regulation of cellular glutathione.

Interaction of oxygen and oxy-radicals with carotenoids.

Normobaric oxygen toxicity of the lung

Potentiation of oxygen toxicity in rats by dietary protein or amino acid deficiency

Transient depletion of lung glutathione by diethylmaleate enhances oxygen toxicity