U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

 

Date of this Version

2017

Document Type

Article

Citation

TOXICOLOGY MECHANISMS AND METHODS, 2017 VOL. 27, NO. 2, 128–135

Comments

Copyright 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

This document is a U.S. government work and is not subject to copyright in the United States.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15376516.2016.1268229

Abstract

Alcohol-mediated liver injury is associated with changes in the level of the major cellular antioxidant glutathione (GSH). It is interesting to investigate if the changes in intracellular GSH level through exogenous agents affect the intracellular cysteine content and the protein adduct formation indicative of oxidative insult in chronic alcohol treated liver cells. In VL-17A cells treated with 2mM N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or 0.1mM ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) plus 100mM ethanol, an increase in cysteine concentration which was accompanied by decreases in hydroxynonenal (HNE) and glutathionylated protein adducts were observed. Pretreatment of 100mM ethanol treated VL-17A cells with 0.4mM buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) or 1mM diethyl maleate (DEM) had opposite effects. Thus, altered GSH level through exogenous agents may either potentiate or ameliorate chronic alcohol-mediated protein adduct formation and change the cysteine level in chronic alcohol treated VL-17A cells. The gene expression of non-treated and ethanol-treated hepatocytes in 2 microarray datasets was also compared to locate differentially expressed genes involved in cysteine metabolism. The study demonstrates that increased protein adducts formation and changes in cysteine concentration occur under chronic alcohol condition in liver cells which may increase alcohol-mediated oxidative injury.

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