Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P30044 (antioxidant enzyme)
 8,037 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We have previously reported that the activity in platelets of the important antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase (GPx) is inversely correlated with computed tomographic (CT) measures of brain atrophy in a population of patients with chronic schizophrenia, suggesting that low GPx may be a vulnerability factor in those schizophrenic patients with structural brain abnormalities. The significance of this finding has now been explored in a larger clinical population by examining the relation of GPx and CT parameters to psychosocial variables and to the activity of platelet monoamine oxidase (MAO), which has also been reported to be altered in certain schizophrenic populations. In the present study, low platelet GPx and high brain atrophy were found to be associated with DSM-III diagnoses of nonparanoid schizophrenia, a high degree of chronicity, and a predominance of negative symptoms. Contrary to some literature reports, atrophy also correlated with age and length of illness among the schizophrenic patients, although the contribution of these factors was less than that of low GPx, which was itself not age dependent. The ventricle-brain ratio (VBR) and atrophy were highly correlated in a control group of affective disorder patients, but not in the schizophrenic group, where large VBRs were found predominantly in the DSM-III undifferentiated subgroup. The low-GPx/high-atrophy schizophrenic patients had normal platelet MAO levels, and MAO was significantly lower only in the paranoid subgroup, consistent with reported observations. There was no evidence for a neuroleptic-induced effect on either enzyme.
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PMID:Platelet glutathione peroxidase and monoamine oxidase activity in schizophrenics with CT scan abnormalities: relation to psychosocial variables. 196 70

The search for morphological clues to the etiology of schizophrenia has led to widespread application of computed tomography (CT) scans in the examination of patients. These investigations have resulted in numerous reports over the past several years of brain atrophy and increased ventricle-brain ratios (VBR), suggestive of neuronal tissue damage, associated with the disorder. Altered activity of cellular antioxidant systems have been implicated in the neuronal cell loss that is associated with degenerative diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), but this phenomenon has not been investigated with respect to functional disorders like schizophrenia. A search for such a relationship in schizophrenics with evidence of brain atrophy has been initiated by measuring the activity of the important antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase (GPx) in blood samples from a population of chronic schizophrenics and age- and sex-matched nonschizophrenic mental patients as controls. A strong negative correlation has been found between GPx activity in both isolated platelets and erythrocytes and CT scan measures of brain atrophy and VBR in the schizophrenics, but not in the control population, which exhibited comparable CT scan abnormalities. These observations suggest a unique relationship of GPx to the mechanism of tissue damage in the schizophrenics.
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PMID:Glutathione peroxidase and CT scan abnormalities in schizophrenia. 366 87

Large amounts of d-2-hydroxyglutaric acid (DGA) accumulate in d-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (D-2-OHGA), an inherited neurometabolic disorder characterized by severe neurological dysfunction and cerebral atrophy. Despite the significant brain abnormalities, the neurotoxic mechanisms of brain injury in this disease are virtually unknown. In this work, the in vitro effect of DGA on various parameters of oxidative stress was investigated; namely chemiluminescence, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBA-RS), total radical-trapping antioxidant potential (TRAP), total antioxidant reactivity (TAR) and the activities of the antioxidant enzymes catalase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase in cerebral cortex from 30-day-old-rats. DGA significantly increased chemiluminescence and TBA-RS and decreased TAR values in the cortical supernatants. In contrast, TRAP and the antioxidant enzyme activities were not altered by the metabolite. Furthermore, the DGA-induced increase of TBA-RS was fully prevented by the free radical scavengers ascorbic acid plus Trolox (water-soluble alpha-tocopherol) and attenuated by the inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase Nomega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), suggesting the role of superoxide, hydroxyl and nitric oxide radicals in this action. The data indicate a stimulation of lipid peroxidation through the production of free radicals and a reduction of the brain capacity to efficiently modulate the damage associated with the enhanced generation of free radicals by DGA. In the case that these findings also occur in human D-2-OHGA, it is feasible that oxidative stress may be involved in the pathophysiology of the brain injury observed in patients with this disease.
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PMID:D-2-hydroxyglutaric acid induces oxidative stress in cerebral cortex of young rats. 1278 67