Human serum determination and in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of the vitamin E metabolite α-(13'-hydroxy)-6-hydroxychroman.

Cytochrome P450-derived long-chain metabolites are gaining increasing interest as bioactive intermediates of vitamin E. In this study we first report on the HPLC-ECD and GC-MS analysis in human serum of the earliest metabolite of this vitamin, namely α-(13'-hydroxy)-6-hydroxychroman (α-13'-OH). The two chromatographic procedure are sensitive enough (LOQ of 10nM) to measure α-13'-OH after hexane extraction of 1 ml of sample obtained from healthy volunteers supplemented for 1-week with 1000 IU/d (671 mg/d) RRR-α-tocopherol.

Post-seizure α-tocopherol treatment decreases neuroinflammation and neuronal degeneration induced by status epilepticus in rat hippocampus.

Vitamin E (as α-tocopherol, α-T) was shown to have beneficial effects in epilepsy, mainly ascribed to its antioxidant properties. Besides radical-induced neurotoxicity, neuroinflammation is also involved in the pathophysiology of epilepsy, since neuroglial activation and cytokine production exacerbate seizure-induced neurotoxicity and contribute to epileptogenesis. We previously showed that α-T oral supplementation before inducing status epilepticus, markedly reduces astrocytic and microglial activation, neuronal cell death and oxidative stress in the hippocampus, as observed 4 days after seizure.

Blood thiol status and erythrocyte glutathione-S-transferase in chronic kidney disease patients on treatment with frequent (daily) hemodialysis.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a condition of impaired homeostasis of blood thiols characterized by a severe hyperhomocysteinemia (HH) and abnormal expression of the red blood cell glutathione (GSH)-consuming enzyme GSH S-transferase (eGST) (Galli et al., Clin Chem 1999). The correlation between plasma Hcy and eGST recently identified by our group (Dessì et al.

Nondialyzable uremic toxins.

Nondialyzable uremic toxins can be defined as solutes producing adverse biological effects that consequently to peculiar physicochemical features (mainly their large size and hydrophobic character) cannot leave the blood stream through a dialysis membrane. These are the subject of great interest for the scientific community, in that emerging evidence suggests that such uremic retention solutes may contribute a main role to the complex inflammatory and vascular comorbidity of the uremic syndrome. Treatments based on most efficient diffusive or convective protocols of dialysis and pharmacological therapies cannot prevent nor correct such clinical symptoms.