Glutathione

This is the first serious attempt to synthesize all that became known of glutathione over the last three decades. The book contains an update of glutathione biosynthesis with special emphasis on its regulation in adaptive stress responses. Other chapters review glutathione transport systems and glutathione peroxidases and their differences in substrate specificities and localization. Further contributions center on the diversified roles of different glutathione-S-transferases and the roles of nitrosoglutathione and glutaredoxins - a subfamily of redoxins. The book closes with discussions of the analogous or homologous thiol metabolism in pathogens and the potential suitability of involved enzymes as drug targets.

Leopold Flohe is Professor at the Universidad de la Republica Uruguay in Montevideo, Uruguay. He also Distinguishing Visiting Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Padova in Italy. He has been recognized by PubMed.gov as a Redox Pioneer because has published an article on antioxidant/redox biology, as first author, that has been cited more than 1,000 times, and more than 20 articles have been cited more than 100 times. He obtained the medical doctorate at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Tubingen, Germany, in 1968. He held positions in both Academia (Tubingen, Aachen, and Braunschweig, Germany) and industry (Aachen). He is now operating the biotech company MOLISA in Magdeburg, Germany, while teaching as guest professor at the local university. Dr. Flohe is the pioneer who established the selenoprotein nature of glutathione peroxidase (GPx), the first and, for almost 10 years, the only selenoprotein known in animals. His work was pivotal to link the essential trace element selenium to metabolic processes, which led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve selenium supplementation for humans in 1980, and stimulated selenium biochemistry in general. In recent years, he embarked on investigating how pathogens protect themselves from oxidative killing. His studies on the thiol-dependent hydroperoxide metabolism of trypanosomatids and mycobacteria defined molecular drug targets, paving the way to new therapeutic strategies for neglected diseases affecting the people of developing countries.