Oxidative stress in the rat heart, studies on low-level chemiluminescence

✍ Scribed by Ursini, Fulvio ;Barsacchi, Renata ;Pelosi, Gualtiero ;Benassi, Antonio

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1989
• Weight: 354 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0884-3996
• DOI: 10.1002/bio.1170040134

✦ Synopsis

Detection of ultraweak chemiluminescence (CL) emission from the surface of the organ is a sensitive and non-disruptive tool t o evaluate the oxidative stress in rat heart. Indeed, an increased photon emission rate can be observed when cellular antioxidants such as glutathione or vitamin E are depleted, or when organic hydroperoxides are infused. We used CL recording t o demonstrate in rat heart that: (i) different diets may lead t o different heart sensitivity t o an oxidative stress; and (ii) post-ischaemic reoxygenation induces an oxidative stress. CL emission induced by an oxidative stress is accompanied by an increased release of eicosanoids. However, while non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (aspirin, indomethacin and ibuprofen) prevented eicosanoid release, these compounds dramatically enhanced hydroperoxide-dependent CL. The nature of this phenomenon is still obscure, but the increase of steady-state concentration of excited species caused by anti-inflammatory drugs seems t o be pathophysiologically relevant, since in all our experimental conditions tissue damage was proportional t o CL emission rate.