Induction, effects, and quantification of sublethal oxidative stress by hydrogen peroxide on cultured human fibroblasts.

Conditions to induce and parameters to evaluate sublethal oxidative stress of cultured human fibroblasts have been investigated in the attempt to identify markers for a more accurate quantification of cell injury. Sublethal oxidative stress was obtained by treating fibroblasts with 0.5 mM H2O2 in DMEM plus 5% FCS for times not exceeding 60 min. Under these conditions cells remained viable throughout long-term incubation, showing no appreciable release of cytosolic enzymes into the medium. On the contrary, exposures of fibroblasts to 0.5 mM H2O2 for times > 60 min induced a lethal cell injury which was fully expressed 2 days later by massive monolayer wasting and leakage of cytosolic components. Early metabolic effects of sublethal stress consisted of a rapid and significant fall of both ATP and NAD+ pools. Concomitantly, there was a moderate increase (about threefold) in both ADP-ribosyl transferase activity and free [Ca2+]i, while the specific activity of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase was partially decreased upon treatment. Oxidative injury also caused delayed effects consisting of a large depression of both protein and DNA synthesis. However, while the former was partially restored within 10 days of incubation, the latter remained severely impaired, as encountered in a growth-arrested population. Microfilaments of H2O2-treated cells appeared to be morphologically altered due to partial fragmentation of cytoskeleton actin which, however, was still maintained in the polymerized form as F-actin. Moreover, sublethally injured fibroblasts exhibited a reduced adhesiveness to plastic once they were detached and reseeded into new dishes. Relative adhesion efficiencies (number of adherent cells at 16 h as a percentage of seeded cells) were found to correlate inversely with times of exposure to H2O2. This finding allowed the identification of a biological parameter which showed itself to be very sensitive to oxidative stress and was also useful for developing an assay to grade sublethal injury to fibroblasts.