Cheng, D.; Long, J.; Zhao, L.; Liu, J. Hydrogen: A Rising Star in Gas Medicine as a Mitochondria-Targeting Nutrient via Activating Keap1-Nrf2 Antioxidant System. Antioxidants2023, 12, 2062.
Cheng, D.; Long, J.; Zhao, L.; Liu, J. Hydrogen: A Rising Star in Gas Medicine as a Mitochondria-Targeting Nutrient via Activating Keap1-Nrf2 Antioxidant System. Antioxidants 2023, 12, 2062.
Cheng, D.; Long, J.; Zhao, L.; Liu, J. Hydrogen: A Rising Star in Gas Medicine as a Mitochondria-Targeting Nutrient via Activating Keap1-Nrf2 Antioxidant System. Antioxidants2023, 12, 2062.
Cheng, D.; Long, J.; Zhao, L.; Liu, J. Hydrogen: A Rising Star in Gas Medicine as a Mitochondria-Targeting Nutrient via Activating Keap1-Nrf2 Antioxidant System. Antioxidants 2023, 12, 2062.
Abstract
The gas molecules O2, NO, H2S, CO, CH4 , have been increasingly used for medical purposes. Beside these gas molecules, H2, the smallest diatomic molecule in nature, has become a rising star in gas medicine in the past few decades. As a non-toxic and easily accessible gas, H2 has shown preventive and therapeutic effects on various diseases of the respiratory, cardiovascular, central nervous and other systems, but the mechanisms are still unclear and even controversial, especially the mechanism of H2 as a selective radical scavenger. Mitochondria are the main organelles regulating energy metabolism in living organisms, as well as the main organelle of reactive oxygen species generation and target. We propose that the protective role of H2 may be mainly dependent on its unique penetrating ability to everywhere of the cells to regulate mitochondrial homeostasis by activating the Keap1-Nrf2 phase II antioxidant system, rather than its direct free radical scavenging activity. In this review, we summarize the protective effects and focus on the mechanism of H2 as a mitochondria-targeting nutrient by activating the Keap1-Nrf2 system in different disease models, and wish to provide a more rational theoretical support for the medical applications of hydrogen.
Keywords
Hydrogen; gas medicine; antioxidant; mitochondria; Keap1-Nrf2; Nrf2 activator
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
