Quinones are electron and proton carriers that play a primary role in the aerobic metabolism of virtually every cell in nature. Most physiological quinones are benzoquinones. They undergo highly regulated redox reactions in the mitochondria, Golgi apparatus, plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum. Important consequences of these electron transfer reactions are the production of and protectio...

1,4-Benzoquinone is cytotoxic in V79 Chinese hamster cells and induces gene mutations and micronuclei. The cell-damaging effects of quinones are usually attributed to thiol depletion, oxidation of NAD(P)H, and redox-cycling involving the formation of semiquinone radicals and reactive oxygen species. To elucidate the role of these mechanisms in the genotoxicity of 1,4-benzoquinone, we measured v...

Six quinones were isolated from the chloroform extract of the roots of Diospyros sylvatica and identified as 2-methyl-anthraquinone, plumbagin, diosindigo, diospyrin, isodiospyrin and microphyllone. The effect of the root extract on the orientation and survival of the subterranean termite, Odontotermes obesus was tested. In addition, four of these quinones were tested on the survival of the sub...

Quinones are important organic oxidants in a variety of synthetic and biological contexts, and they are susceptible to activation towards electron transfer through hydrogen bonding. Whereas this effect of hydrogen bond donors (HBDs) has been observed for Lewis basic, weakly oxidizing quinones, comparable activation is not readily achieved when more reactive and synthetically useful electron-def...

quinones are a class of compounds which have widespread importance in chemistry, biology and medicine. because of their appropriate performance in electron transferring rate, quinones are among the most applicable mediators in biosensors. recently, the effects of different non-metal substitutions on redox potential of quinone have been investigated to design suitable mediators for different ele...

Introduction Quinones are ubiquitous dietary compounds. Reduction of quinones by one-electron reduction systems (cytochrome P450 reductases) results in the formation of reactive semiquinones that can be re-oxidized to quinones by molecular oxygen with the formation of superoxide radical (02-*). Superoxide can lead to the formation of other reactive oxygen species, including the highly mutagenic...

The biomimetic catalytic oxidations of the dinuclear and trinuclear copper(II) complexes versus two catechols, namely, D-(+)-catechin and L-( - )-epicatechin to give the corresponding quinones are reported. The unstable quinones were trapped by the nucleophilic reagent, 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone (MBTH), and have been calculated the molar absorptivities of the different quinones. Th...

The rate of consumption of dithiothreitol (DTT) is increasingly used to measure the oxidative potential of particulate matter (PM), which has been linked to the adverse health effects of PM. While several quinones are known to be very reactive in the DTT assay, it is unclear what other chemical species might contribute to the loss of DTT in PM extracts. To address this question, we quantify the...

The study addressed the effects of redox-active compounds on trypsin activity. Series of organic oxidizers (quinones) and reducers (phenols) were chosen as model redox-active compounds. Trypsin activity was quantified by bioluminescent technique. Interactions of these compounds with trypsin were studied by fluorescent and light absorption methods. Luminescence intensity decay constants in the r...