[Nitric oxide and electrogenic metals (Ca, Na, K) in epidermal cells].

Using atomic emission spectrometry and EPR analysis metal-ligand homeostasis (MLH) has been studied in epidermal cells of 954 liquidators of the Chernobyl accident and 947 healthy individuals. A possible association of the redox status with the quantitative changes in the MLH, which could be used as discriminators of oxidative/nitrosative stress, attracts special interest. Characteristic features of oxidative stress mainly related to electrogenic metals (Ca, K, Na), were found not only among the liquidators examined, but also in some healthy individuals (18.1%); this suggests the presence of oxidative/nitrosative stress of non-radiation origin. Correlation between intracellular production of nitric oxide (NO) with quantitative changes in the electrogenic metals may indicate the possible involvement of NO in the generation of an electric potential of the cell.

Diagnosis of nitrosative stress by quantitative EPR-spectroscopy of epidermal cells.

Quantitative assay of nitric oxide (NO) and iron (Fe) was carried out by the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) method in epidermal derivative (hair) of 45 liquidators of the Chernobyl accident, 30 employees of radiological institutions having contact with radiation, and 50 students of Vladimir State University, most of which were diagnosed with iron deficiency, namely iron deficiency anemia (4 persons) and latent iron deficiency (34 persons). Measurements were performed on a Radiopan EPR-spectrometer. It was found that the method of quantitative EPR-spectroscopy using diethyldithiocarbamate as a trap in vitro could be successfully used to measure NO-radical activity in such a biological substrate as hair. It was found that the intensity of NO-radical signal in the spectrogram depends on the Fe level (not only in the analyzed substrate, but also in the whole organism).