Modulation of oxidative stress by functionalized fullerene materials in the lung tissues of female C57/BL mice with a metastatic Lewis lung carcinoma.

Oxidative stress is considered to be one of the important mechanisms involved in carcinogenesis. To investigate the effect of [Gd@C82(OH)22]n and [C60(OH)20]n nanoparticles on the oxidative stress in the tumor-bearing mice, several antioxidative enzymes and antioxidants were tested for mice with or without tumor inoculation. Transplanted tumors were grown in mice by subcutaneous inoculation of a metastatic Lewis lung carcinoma in female C57/BL mice. More importantly, the tumor cells can metastasize into the normal lung tissues gradually. Therefore, in present paper, the activities of copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (CuZn-SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), glutathione S-transferase (GST), as well as the levels of reduced glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the tumor-invaded lung tissues of the tumor-bearing mice were compared to the nomal lung tissues of normal mice. After treatment with nanoparticles, the activities of GSH-Px and GST and other parameters related to the oxidative stress were downregulated and tended closely to the normal levels. Pulmonary histopathological results also showed that two different types of water-soluble fullerenes can prevent lungs from inflammatory lesion and tumor invasion. These findings indicate two different types of water-soluble fullerenes materials can downregulate the oxidative stress status by scavenging excessive free radicals and inhibiting the lipid peroxidation in tumor-bearing mice, which can partly explain their protective roles on the pulmonary oxidative-damage induced by the tumor metastasis to lung tissues.