Membrane Damage Provoked by Lipid Peroxides

Abstract

In riboflavin deficiency, cataract and vascular disorders frequently occur in humans as well as in experimental animals. As for the mechanism underlying such pathogenesis, it is easily supposed that riboflavin deficiency brings about the decrease in the level of flavin coenzymes and thereby decreases the activities of flavin enzymes and that the resulting metabolic disorders would produce or accumulate some substance(s) which provoke such pathogenesis. However, these deleterious substances were never identified for a long time. As such substances, the author has designated lipid peroxides increased in the blood. This idea has been derived from the fact that the serum lipid peroxide level is increased in ariboflavinosis (1) and that lipid peroxides injected intravenously into a rabbit provoke injury to the endothelial cells of the aorta (2). The present paper deals with the latter phenomenon, especially the membrane damage of the endothelial cells of vessels caused by linoleic acid hydroperoxide, in relation to the initial event in atherogenesis.