CAS 70-18-8 bulk Glutathione powder CAS NO.70-18-8

Glutathione (GSH) is an important antioxidant in plants, animals, fungi, and some bacteria and archaea. Glutathione is capable of preventing damage to important cellular components caused by reactive oxygen species such as free radicals, peroxides, lipid peroxides, and heavy metals.[2] It is a tripeptide with a gamma peptide linkage between the carboxyl group of the glutamate side chain and the amine group of cysteine, and the carboxyl group of cysteine is attached by normal peptide linkage to a glycine.

Thiol groups are reducing agents, existing at a concentration around 5 mM in animal cells. Glutathione reduces disulfide bonds formed within cytoplasmic proteins to cysteines by serving as an electron donor. In the process, glutathione is converted to its oxidized form, glutathione disulfide (GSSG), also called L-glutathione.

Once oxidized, glutathione can be reduced back by glutathione reductase, using NADPH as an electron donor.[3] The ratio of reduced glutathione to oxidized glutathione within cells is often used as a measure of cellular oxidative stress.

Glutathione exists in both reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG) states.

Glutathione has multiple functions:

It maintains levels of reduced glutaredoxin and glutathione peroxidase.

It is one of the major endogenous antioxidants produced by the cells, participating directly in the neutralization of free radicals and reactive oxygen compounds, as well as maintaining exogenous antioxidants such as vitamins C and E in their reduced (active) forms.

Regulation of the nitric oxide cycle is critical for life, but can be problematic if unregulated.

It is used in metabolic and biochemical reactions such as DNA synthesis and repair, protein synthesis, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid transport, and enzyme activation. Thus, every system in the body can be affected by the state of the glutathione system, especially the immune system, the nervous system, the gastrointestinal system, and the lungs.

It has a vital function in iron metabolism. Yeast cells depleted of GSH or containing toxic levels of GSH show an intense iron starvation-like response and impairment of the activity of extramitochondrial ISC enzymes thus inhibiting oxidative endoplasmic reticulum folding, followed by death.

It has roles in progression of the cell cycle, including cell death. GSH levels regulate redox changes to nuclear proteins necessary for the initiation of cell differentiation. Differences in GSH levels also determine the expressed mode of cell death, being either apoptosis or cell necrosis. Manageably low levels result in the systematic breakage of the cell whereas excessively low levels result in rapid cell death.