Plasma level of antioxidant vitamins and lipid peroxidation in breast cancer patients

Oxidative stress arises when there is an imbalance between reactive oxygen species [ROSs] and scavenging capacity of antioxidants, and it can induce and progress many diseases such as breast cancer. The present study was conducted to investigate the status of plasma antioxidative vitamins [E and C] and lipid peroxidation on 50 untreated breast cancer patients and 50 healthy age-matched women. The results revealed that plasma vitamin E and vitamin E adjusted for the sum of cholesterol and triglycerides decreased significantly in patients group [P< 0.05]. We could also observe that vitamin E adjusted for lipid was significantly different in various stages of breast cancer. On the other hand, the level of malondialdehyde increased significantly in patients as compared to the controls [P <0.05]. There were no significant changes in plasma vitamin C between two groups. According to the findings, attention to the level of plasma antioxidant vitamins and lipid peroxidation is of great importance to promote the level of health in women suffering from breast cancer

Blood superoxide dismutase and catalase activities in women affected with breast cancer

Experimental and epidemiological evidences implicate the involvement of oxygen derived radicals in the pathogenesis of cancer development. Oxygen derived radicals are able to cause damage to membranes, mitochondria and macromolecules including proteins, lipids and DNA. Accumulation of DNA damages has been suggested to contribute to carcinogenesis. It would, therefore, be advantageous to pinpoint the effects of oxygen derived radicals in cancer development. We investigated superoxide dismutase [SOD] and Catalase [CAT] activities in the whole blood of 50 breast cancer [BC] patients and 50 healthy and age matched women. The rate of SOD and CAT activities in BC patients was significantly lower [P<0.001] than controls. No effect of stage on SOD and CAT activities was observed. The results of our study have shown a higher reactive oxygen species [ROS] production and decreased SOD and CAT activities, which support the oxidative stress hypothesis in carcinogenesis. The relative lower SOD and CAT activities may not be adequate to detoxify high levels of H[2]O[2] into H[2]O leading to the formation of the most dangerous OH radical. Therefore, administration of antioxidants may be helpful in the management of BC patients. However, elaborate clinical studies are required to evaluate the role of such antioxidant enzymes [AOE] in BC management

new method for the purification of Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase from human erythrocytes

The human erythrocyte is a rich raw material for the purification of Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase [SOD]. We applied a simple and rapid procedure for the purification of SOD from human erythrocytes by ion exchange chromatography. The purified SOD had a specific activity of 2285.6 u/mg protein and gave a single band on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate [SDS] and each of its to subunit has a molecular weight about 18600 daltons [SOD molecular weight is 37200 daltons].The physicochemical properties of the enzyme obtained by this method are identical to those of the native protein.This procedure appears, therefore, to be a convenient and easily method for isolating this enzyme