Enhancement mechanism of antioxidant enzyme gene expression by hydrogen molecules

Background Redox regulation system protects our body from oxidative stress-injury and keeps redox homeostasis. The hydrogen molecules (H2) exist as stable gas in the ordinal temperature and atmosphere. Recent study reports H2 improve ischemia-reperfusion injury, glaucoma, Parkinson’s disease and atherosclerosis of animal models. It is supposed from these improvement results that H2 participate in reduction of the oxidation stress, however, the reaction mechanism has not been clarified thoroughly. We surmised that intracellular redox regulation system is activated by H2 thereupon antioxidative activity is generated. Thus, we tried to find the effect of H2 on the Nrf2 pathway, one of the redox regulation systems.