A shift of the prooxidant-antioxidant balance in the bodies of laboratory animals at five-fold increased deuterium content in drinking diet

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the study of the effect of water with deuterium content of 750 ppm, used for simulation of the isotopic composition of water in ice caps at the poles of Mars, on oxidative processes in the liver tissue and blood of laboratory animals. It was found that prolonged consumption of deuterium-enriched water contributed to an increase in the deuterium content in blood plasma up to 487 ppm. As a result, increased antioxidant activity in the liver tissues and blood plasma was observed. In addition, the effect of a medium that contains 487 ppm of deuterium on the secondary structure of bovine serum albumin was also investigated in a model experiment. A decrease in intensity of circular dichroism and intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence spectra was found. This indicates that there are conformational changes in the structure of this protein at a time when the content of deuterium increases in the incubation medium. The results of our research point to the need to explore further the effect of drinking diet with the increased deuterium to (from 700 to 1000 ppm) on living systems, to explain the possibility for life on Mars.