Environmental oxidant pollutant effects on biologic systems: a focus on micronutrient antioxidant-oxidant interactions.
Oxidative atmospheric pollutants represent a significant source of stress to both terrestrial plants and animals. The biosurfaces of plants and surface-living organisms are directly exposed to these pollutant stresses. These surfaces, including respiratory tract surfaces, contain integrated antioxidant systems that would be expected to provide a primary defense against environmental threats caused by atmospheric reactive oxygen species. When the biosurface antioxidant defenses are overwhelmed, oxidative stress to the cellular components of the exposed biosurfaces can be expected, inducing inflammatory, adaptive, injurious, and reparative processes. Studies of mutants and/or transformed plants and insects, with specific alterations in key components of antioxidant defense systems, offer opportunities to dissect the complex systems that maintain surface defenses against environmental oxidants. In this article, we use a comparative approach to consider interactions of atmospheric oxidant pollutants with selected biosystems, with focus on O3 as the pollutant; plants, flies, skin, and lungs as the exposed biosystems; and nonenzymatic micronutrient antioxidants as significant contributors to overall antioxidant defense strategies of these varied biosystems. Parallelisms among several living organisms, with regard to their protective strategies against environmental atmospheric oxidants, are presented.
Cross
Carroll E
CE
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and Center for Comparative Lung Biology and Medicine, University of California School of Medicine, Davis, California 95817, USA. cecross@ucdavis.edu
Valacchi
Giuseppe
G
Schock
Bettina
B
Wilson
Malinda
M
Weber
Stefan
S
Eiserich
Jason
J
van der Vliet
Albert
A
D000818:Animals; D000975:Antioxidants / Q000378:metabolism*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D016877:Oxidants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D018384:Oxidative Stress / Q000187:drug effects*; D010944:Plants / Q000187:drug effects*; D012137:Respiratory System / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism
D000975:Antioxidants; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D016877:Oxidants