Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-16-2011

Description

Sulfur mustard or mustard gas (HD) and its monofunctional analog, 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (CEES), or "half-mustard gas", are alkylating agents that induce DNA damage, oxidative stress, and inflammation. HD/CEES are rapidly absorbed in the skin causing extensive injury. We hypothesize that antioxidant liposomes that deliver both water-soluble and lipid-soluble antioxidants protect skin cells from immediate CEES-induced damage via attenuating oxidative stress. Liposomes containing water-soluble antioxidants and/or lipid-soluble antioxidants were evaluated using in vitro model systems. Initially, we found that liposomes containing encapsulated glutathione (GSH-liposomes) increased cell viability and attenuated production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in HaCaT cells exposed to CEES. Next, GSH-liposomes were tested in a human epidermal model, EpiDerm. In the EpiDerm, GSH-liposomes administered simultaneously or 1 hour after CEES exposure (2.5mM) increased cell viability, inhibited CEES-induced loss of ATP and attenuated changes in cellular morphology, but did not reduce caspase-3 activity. These findings paralleled the previously described in vivo protective effect of antioxidant liposomes in the rat lung and established the effectiveness of GSH-liposomes in a human epidermal model. This study provides a rationale for use of antioxidant liposomes against HD toxicity in the skin considering further verification in animal models exposed to HD.

Copyright Statement

Copyright © 2011 Victor Paromov et al. 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.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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