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Identifying Inhibitors of the HBx-DDB1 Interaction Using a Split Luciferase Assay System
Published on: December 21, 2019
Inhibition of L-DOPA-Cu(II)-mediated DNA cleavage by bilirubin
1Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligath (U. P.) 202 002, India.
Abstract:
It has been proposed that considerable DNA damage may be caused by endogenous metabolites produced during the body's normal metabolic processes. We have previously shown that L-DOPA, in the presence of Cu(II), leads to oxidative DNA breakage in vitro. Bilirubin is a degradation product of heme and is considered to possess antioxidant properties. In this paper we report that bilirubin inhibits L-DOPA-Cu(II)-mediated DNA cleavage to an appreciable extent of 50% at a concentration of 50 microM. Bilirubin was also shown to directly quench the generation of hydroxyl radicals by L-DOPA-Cu(II) to an extent of 30% at a concentration of 20 microM. The results support the putative antioxidant role of bilirubin in higher primates.
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