Many herbs have been used as therapeutics in Korean traditional medicine. In view of their clinical indications, anti-oxidant activity may contribute to their pharmacological effects. However, anti-oxidant information on these plants has not been available. In this study, seventy herbs which have been used in Korean traditional medicine were selected and screened for anti-oxidant activity using...

Bcl-2 is recognized as an oncoprotein via its ability to impede death signaling by sequestrating pro-apoptotic proteins such as Bax and Bak as well as preserving mitochondrial outer membrane integrity. Recently, a growing body of evidence has evaluated the role of Bcl-2 in intracellular redox regulation and its downstream effects on life and death decisions in cancer cells. On the backdrop of t...

Haemozoin (Hz) is a haem aggregate produced in some blood-feeding organisms. There is a general belief that Hz formation would be a protective mechanism against haem toxicity. Here we show that when aggregated into Hz, haem is less deleterious than its free form. When haem was added to phosphatidylcholine (PC) liposomes, there was an intense stimulation of oxygen consumption, which did not occu...

Aluminum, a non-redox-active metal is, nevertheless, a pro-oxidant both in in vitro preparations and in vivo. It facilitates both superoxide- and iron-driven biological oxidation by mechanisms that remain to be resolved. More than 10 years ago Fridovich and colleagues suggested that the facilitation of superoxide-driven biological oxidation by aluminum was due to an interaction between the meta...

We investigated the ability of an acute pro-oxidant challenge in vivo to deteriorate glycaemic control and insulin action in the obese Zucker rat, a model of insulin resistance associated with oxidant stress. In obese animals, the daily administration for 1 week of hydroquinone (HQ) in combination with L-buthionine sulphoximine (BSO), elevated fasting plasma glycaemia and insulinaemia and marke...