There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
We used several biochemical assays to evaluate age-related changes in antioxidant
enzyme levels vs. free-radical damage in the murine brain. We found levels of several
free-radical scavenging enzymes in the brains of 24-month-old C57B1 male mice vs.
12-month-old animals were decreased, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase,
and glutathione reductase (GSSG-Rd). In addition, we found concomitant increases in
the levels of several forms of free-radical damage including sensitivity to lipid
peroxidation as measured by the thiobarbituric acid test, protein oxidation as measured
by glutamine synthetase (Gln Syn) activity, as well as increases in oxidized glutathione
(GSSG) levels, a measure of oxidative stress. These data suggest that decreases in
levels of enzymes which ordinarily protect neuronal cells against oxidative stress
with age may be responsible for increased levels of free-radical damage in the murine
brain, or that these enzymes themselves are susceptible to inactivation by free radical
molecules which increase with age in the brain.