The toxicity of extracellular spermine, determined in the presence of fetal calf serum, was studied using three cell lines: FM3A, L1210, and NIH3T3 cells. Amine oxidase in fetal calf serum produces aminodialdehyde generating acrolein spontaneously, H(2)O(2), and ammonia from spermine. Spermine toxicity was prevented by aldehyde dehydrogenase, but not by catalase. Similar concentrations of sperm...

Acrolein is an electrophilic a,b-unsaturated aldehyde of industrial, pharmaceutic, and toxicologic importance to which we are exposed in environmental, occupational, and therapeutic situations. Acrolein is known to exert different biologic effects through reactions with cellular macromolecules such as DNA, certain proteins, or glutathione. In many situations (such as in tobacco smoke or other f...

Environmental triggers of dilated cardiomyopathy are poorly understood. Acute exposure to acrolein, a ubiquitous aldehyde pollutant, impairs cardiac function and cardioprotective responses in mice. Here, we tested the hypothesis that chronic oral exposure to acrolein induces inflammation and cardiomyopathy. C57BL/6 mice were gavage-fed acrolein (1 mg/kg) or water (vehicle) daily for 48 days. Th...

The ability of the highly reactive aldehyde acrolein to affect growth, membrane integrity, differentiation, and thiol status and to cause DNA damage has been studied at serum- and thiol-free conditions using cultured human bronchial epithelial cells. Acrolein markedly decreases colony survival at 3 microM whereas about 10-fold higher concentrations are required to increase membrane permeability...

Acrolein, a very reactive aldehyde, is a culprit in the biochemical cascade after primary, mechanical spinal cord injury (SCI), which leads to the destruction of tissue initially unharmed, referred to as “secondary injury”. Additionally, in models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and some clinical research, acrolein levels are significantly increased. Due to its ability to make more copies of itself ...

Acrolein, an α,β-unsaturated aldehyde, is a ubiquitous pollutant that is also produced endogenously through lipid peroxidation. This compound is hundreds of times more reactive than other aldehydes such as 4-hydroxynonenal, is produced at much higher concentrations, and persists in solution for much longer than better known free radicals. It has been implicated in disease states known to involv...

We have previously shown that acrolein, a lipid peroxidation byproduct, is significantly increased following spinal cord injury in vivo, and that exposure to neuronal cells results in oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, increased membrane permeability, impaired axonal conductivity, and eventually cell death. Acrolein thus may be a key player in the pathogenesis of spinal cord injury, w...

Acrolein is a highly reactive α,βunsaturated aldehyde, but the factors that control its reactions with nucleophilic groups on proteins remain poorly understood. Lipid peroxidation and threonine oxidation by myeloperoxidase are potential sources of acrolein during inflammation. Because both pathways are implicated in atherogenesis and high density lipoprotein (HDL) is antiatherogenic, we investi...

Glycerol/diol dehydratases catalyze the conversion of glycerol to 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde (3-HPA), the basis of a multi-component system called reuterin. Reuterin has antimicrobial properties and undergoes chemical conjugation with dietary heterocyclic amines (HCAs). In aqueous solution reuterin is in dynamic equilibrium with the toxicant acrolein. It was the aim of this study to investigate t...

Mills et al. (1954) and Serjak et al. (1954) have reported the production of acrolein in distillery grain mashes and identified the causative organisms as lactobacilli. In addition to the lactobacilli described by these investigators, bacteria representing at least four other genera have been observed to produce acrolein: Bacillus amaracrylus by Voisenet (1918) (see B. polymyxa in Bergey's Manu...