The Study On The Relationship Of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis With Nitric Oxide And Oxidation And Lipoperoxidation

Objective Up to now,the etiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is still unclear.There are many hypotheses that have been suggested to explain its etiological basis.Increasing evidence indicated that free radical-mediated cell of motor neuronal dysfunction was involved in the pathophysiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Free radicals (nitric oxide) cause neuron injury when they are generated excessively or the antioxidant defense function is impaied.In this study,we systematically measured the contents or activity of oxyradical scavengers and nitric oxide and lipoperoxidation in the plasma or erythrocytes of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and control.Methods Using a random control design, 32 patients with ALS, (the ALS group , 25 male and 7 femal,age 38-75,mean age 56.0?0.82) and 50 age and sex-matched healthy adult volunteers(the HAV group)(42 male and 8 femal,age range 38-75,mean age56.4?1.6)were involved.they were investigated by means of lipoperoxides (LPO), nitric oxide (NO), vitamin C (VC), vitamin E (VE) and p-carotene (P-CAR), and activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in plasma as well as activities of SOD, catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in erythrocytes (RBC), and LPO in RBC with spectrophotometric assays.Results Compared with the average values (AV) of every biochemical parameters (BP) in the HAV group, three enxymes activity and the contents of the AV of VC, VE, p-CAR in plasma as well as SOD, CAT and GSH-Px in RBC in the ALS group were significantly decreased (PO.001), while the AV of the LPO in_RBC and in plasma,and NO in plasma in the ALS group were significantly increased (PO.001). The low limit of the HAV group was higher than the high limit of patients of 95% confidential interval(Cl)that of content or activity of VC, VE, (3-CAR in plasma, SOD, CAT and GSH-Px in erythrocyte ;while that high limit of LPO and NO in plasma and in erythrocyte of patients was lower than the low limit of HAV.Conclusion These findings in this study suggested that the metabolism of nitric oxide was turbulence in the ALS patients'bodies,the disturbance of free radicals release-clearance mechanism and oxidalion-antioxidation mechanism might have an important effect on the pathogenesis of ALS.