The imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants in cells often results in pathological processes and/or diseases. This delicate balance is achieved in part by antioxidant enzymes such as glutathione peroxidase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase (SOD), as well as by low-molecular-weight reductants such as glutathione. We evaluated the effect of thiol reagents on the proliferation of the Jurkat ...

PURPOSE Oxidative stress from reactive oxygen species (ROS) has been implicated in many diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), in which the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is considered a primary target. Because manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2), localized in mitochondria, is known to be a key enzyme that protects the cells against oxidative stress, this study was unde...

Heart mitochondria from heterozygous (Sod2(-/+)) knockout mice have a 50% reduction in manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) activity. The decrease in MnSOD activity was associated with increased mitochondrial oxidative damage as demonstrated by a decrease in the activities of iron sulfhydryl proteins sensitive to oxygen stress (aconitase and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-oxidoredu...

BACKGROUND There has been accumulating evidence that there are associations among γ-glutamyltransferase (γ-GT) elevation and all-cause mortality, cardiovascular diseases and metabolic diseases, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of the most common and potentially functional polymorphisms of antioxidant enzyme genes, i.e. su...

Cardiac electrophysiological alterations induced by chronic exposure to reactive oxygen species and protective effects of dietary antioxidant have not been thoroughly examined. We recorded surface electrocardiograms (ECG) and evaluated cellular electrophysiological abnormalities in enzymatically-dissociated left ventricular (LV) myocytes in heart/muscle-specific manganese-superoxide dismutase-d...

BACKGROUND Cytoprotectant amifostine attenuates radiation-induced oxidative injury by increasing intracellular manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2) in peripheral tissue. However, whether amifostine could protect neuronal cells against oxidative injury has not been reported. The purpose of this study is to explore the protection of amifostine in PC12 cells. METHODS PC12 cells exposed to gluta...

Telomere shortening represents a causal factor of cellular senescence. At the same time, several lines of evidence indicate a pivotal role of oxidative DNA damage for the aging process in vivo. A causal connection between the two observations was suggested by experiments showing accelerated telomere shorting under conditions of oxidative stress in cultured cells, but has never been studied in v...

Osteocytes are major bone cells that play a crucial role in maintaining the quality of and healing damage to bone tissue. The number of living osteocytes and canalicular networks declines in an age-dependent manner. However, the pathological effects of mitochondrial redox imbalances on osteocytes and bone metabolism have not been fully elucidated. We generated mice lacking mitochondrial superox...

Oxidative stress is believed to greatly contribute to the pathogenesis of various diseases, including neurodegeneration. Impairment of mitochondrial energy production and increased mitochondrial oxidative damage are considered early pathological events that lead to neurodegeneration. Manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD, SOD2) is a mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme that converts toxic superoxi...

Manganese superoxide dismutase is an essential component of the mitochondrial antioxidant defense system of most eukaryotes. In the present study, we used a reverse-genetics approach to assess the contribution of the Cryptococcus neoformans manganese superoxide dismutase (Sod2) for antioxidant defense. Strains with mutations in the SOD2 gene exhibited increased susceptibility to oxidative stres...