A perspective on the oxidative burst in the phagosome of the leukocyte and its neoplastic transformation.

Abstract

*O2 indicates molecular oxygen; O2(so), singlet molecular oxygen in the ground state; O2(s), singlet molecular oxygen in an excited state; O, atomic oxygen; O•–, peroxide anion; O2 •–, superoxide anion; •OH, hydroxyl radical; O2H, peroxide radical; H +, hydrogen ion; E, energy in the reaction; e, electron; u.r., ultraviolet radiation. It has been hypothesized that ultraviolet radiation is formed within the phagosomes of neutrophilic leukocytes during the oxygen burst [1]. This hypothesis explains that ultraviolet radiation is formed as a consequence of the jump of an electron placed in an internal orbital of the oxygen molecule from a fundamental (ground) state, O2(so), to an external orbital to settle the oxygen in a singlet excited state, O2(s), with the subsequent return of the electron to its primitive orbital and emission of ultraviolet radiation occurring with this return [2] (Table 1b). In this theory, the energy needed to move the electron from its primitive internal orbital to another external orbital is formed by neutrinos, because the neutrino has the same spin as the electron.Therefore, invoking the principle of minimal energy, ie, the tendency to the least energy consumption, the photon, which has a different spin than the electron and therefore would be more difficult to adsorb, is left discarded [4]. The neutrino, according to this logic, has to come from the energetic phosphoric bonds that are in the reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) and in a component of the NADPH oxidase, the flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), forming part, therefore, of the energetic contents of these bonds. The second law of Stokes says that the frequency of the radiation emitted by a fluorescent substance is the same as or smaller than the frequency of the radiation that has excited this fluorescent substance. The neutrophil polymorphonuclear leukocytes emit light when they phagocytize zymosan (extract of Saccharomyces cerevisiae) that acts with chemiluminescence as a manifestation of their germicidal activity [5]. Applying the second law of Stokes, this light emitted by the A Perspective on the Oxidative Burst in the Phagosome of the Leukocyte and Its Neoplastic Transformation