The oxidative molecular regulation mechanism of NOX in children with phenylketonuria.
[phenylketonuria]
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is the most frequent inherited disorder of amino acid metabolism. In our previous work, we investigated the role of NADPH oxidase (NOX) in a Pahenu2-BTBR PKU mouse model, and an in vitro cell culture model of PKU. In the current study, we evaluated various oxidative stress parameters, namely total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), glutathione (GSH) and maleic dialdehyde (MDA) in the plasma of 40 PKU children, for further investigating the oxidative molecular regulation mechanism of NOX in PKU. It was observed that T-AOC and GSH markedly decreased in PKU as compared with the control group (P<0.01), and seemed to correlate negatively with Phe level. However, there was no statistical difference in MDA level among the three groups. And 8-isoprostane in the blood samples of PKU2 groups was slightly higher than control group (P<0.05). Additionally, mRNA levels of subunits of NOX included p47(phox) and p67(phox) significantly increased in PKU group (P<0.01). These results reflected that NOX is the important source of reactive oxygen species and is involved in the oxidative molecular regulation mechanism in PKU, which shows a new perspective toward understanding the biological underpinnings of PKU.
