Shelley M. Klein, G. Cohen, A. Cederbaum
Jul 28, 1980
Citations
0
Influential Citations
31
Citations
Journal
FEBS Letters
Abstract
Dimethylsulfoxide is a potent hydroxyl radical scavenging agent [ 1,2]. This compound reacts with hydroxyl radicals to produce methyl radicals (CHs) [3 -51, which can give rise to methane gas by hydrogen abstraction. The production of methane from dimethylsulfoxide has been used to detect the generation of hydroxyl radicals by several biological systems [6-91. However, investigations with dimethylsulfoxide, 3-thiomethylpropanal (methional) and 2-keto4-thiomethylbutyric acid as hydroxyl radical scavengers have demonstrated that the production of methane from dimethylsulfoxide is at least one order of magnitude less than the generation of ethylene gas from either methional or from 2-keto&hiomethylbutyric acid under the same experimental conditions [7,8]. Therefore, the detection of methane gas in these systems is limited by the small amounts which are generated. Here we show that formaldehyde is also produced when dimethylsulfoxide interacts with hydroxyl radicals. The oxidation of xanthine by xanthine oxidase was used as a model hydroxyl radical generating system. Hydroxyl radicals, which are generated during the oxidation of xanthine by xanthine oxidase, have been shown to be directly responsible for the production of ethylene from methional [lo] and for the oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde [ 111. The production of formaldehyde from dimethylsulfoxide may also provide a useful assay for detect-