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Oxygen Toxicity / Free Radical

last updated: January 19, 2017

Orlando Debesa

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your seeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, temptest-toss, to me.

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--Emma Lazarus

Oxygen is Good

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Essential for aerobic respiration

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Generation of usable energy from food

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Metabolism of endogenous intermediates

  • steroid hormones

  • prostaglandins

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Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER)

  • most oxidized organelle in the cell

  • the formation of disulfide bonds for protein folding is guided by the oxidizing nature of the ER

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Immune defense functions/cell killing / Inflammation

  • thru the formation of HOCl- by the phagocytes

  • NADPH oxidase generates superoxide

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Generation of NO*

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Metabolism of drugs/xenobiotics

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Oxygen is bad

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Hydroxyl ion (OH-)

  • DNA/protein damage

  • lipid peroxidation

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H2O2

  • glutathione / catalase

Antioxidants

  • glutathione

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