BACKGROUND Depletion of blood glutathione (GSH), a key antioxidant, is known to occur in preterm infants. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to determine: 1) whether GSH depletion is present at the time of birth; and 2) whether it is associated with insufficient availability of cysteine (cys), the limiting GSH precursor, or a decreased capacity to synthesize GSH. METHODOLOGY Sixteen mothers delivering v...

We have previously demonstrated that neuronal microtubules are exquisitely sensitive to the lipid peroxidation product 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE). The mechanism, however, by which HNE disrupts the microtubules, is not known. Sulfhydryl groups of protein-cysteines constitute main targets of HNE. Indeed, HNE is mainly detoxified by conjugation to glutathione (GSH), a reaction that leads to depletion ...

Decreased cellular GSH content is a common finding in experimental and human diabetes, in which increased oxidative stress appears to occur. Oxidative stress has been suggested to play a causative role in the development of impaired insulin action on adipose tissue and skeletal muscle. In this study we undertook to investigate the potential of GSH depletion to induce insulin resistance, by util...

We investigated the hypothesis that reduced glutathione (GSH) is present in secretions of the female reproductive tract and that this extracellular GSH may protect preimplantation mouse embryos after intracellular GSH depletion. The cleavage-stage mouse embryo cannot synthesize GSH de novo and is unable to recover from glutathione depletion in vitro. Analysis of GSH and total protein of oviduct...

We investigated the ability of fatty acids to induce growth inhibition and apoptosis in the human PaCa-44 pancreatic cancer cell line and the mechanism(s) underlying apoptosis. Butyric acid, alpha-linoleic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were supplemented at 200 microM concentration in the medium of cell cultures. Our results showed that all fatty acids inhibited cell growth, whereas only ...

Dietary deficiency of methionine (Met) is known to deplete cellular Met and cause DNA hypomethylation, but depletion of Met and impairment in methylation due to chemically induced glutathione (GSH) depletion has escaped recognition. In this study, the effect of GSH depletion on the Met pool and methylation capability was examined after bromobenzene (BB), a model GSH-depleting hepatotoxin, was a...

Proteins can form reversible mixed disulfides with glutathione (GSH). It has been hypothesized that protein glutathionylation may represent a mechanism of redox regulation, in a fashion similar to that mediated by protein phosphorylation. We investigated whether GSH has a signaling role in the response of HL60 cells to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), in addition to its obvious antioxidant role. We id...

Enteric glia play an important neuroprotective role in the enteric nervous system (ENS) by producing neuroprotective compounds such as the antioxidant reduced glutathione (GSH). The specific cellular pathways that regulate glial production of GSH and how these pathways are altered during, or contribute to, neuroinflammation in situ and in vivo are not fully understood. We investigated this issu...

In the present study, we investigated the effect of intracellular glutathione (GSH) depletion in heart-derived H9c2 cells and its mechanism. L-buthionine-S,R-sulfoximine (BSO) induced the depletion of cellular GSH, and BSO-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was inhibited by glutathione monoethyl ester (GME). Additionally, GME inhibited BSO-induced caspase-3 activation, annexin V-p...