The mystery of highly reactive oxygen has finally been solved

After several decades, researchers finally get an understanding when in chemical reactions an odd and destructive type of oxygen in living cells and in some batteries arises.

Not all oxygen molecules are created equal. In some of their two most energetic electrons, the opposite values ​​of the quantum back have, while in their other backs they correspond. When they are opposites, the molecule is known as the “Single -acid”, which is very reactive, so it can cause toxic changes in proteins and fats in cells and eat parts of some batteries. Since the 1960s, chemists have been working to determine exactly when this evil twin of oxygen, which we are happy to breathe, occurs in chemical reactions. Stefan Freinberger At the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria and his colleagues have now found out.

They conducted a series of experiments that began with a molecule of superoxide – compounds that contains oxygen and participates in chemical reactions used mitochondria to power cells – And ended with oxygen products in any form. While the cells have enzymes that help this process, the team tried different Mediator molecules. This allowed them to record oxygen manufacturing reactions with a wide spectrum of driving forces or differences in energy, which force the reaction to occur in the first place. They found that it was this driving force that matters – for the formation of single oxygen, this force should have become very high.

“There were really really fierce debates about whether it is or not [singlet oxygen] Forms in the medium of cells. So far it has never been explained, ”says Freinberger.

Since mitochondrias have high PH values ​​that support low driving force, the new work implies that the simultaneous oxygen is not produced in large quantities inside these cellular power plants, which protects the cell from damage.

Christopher McNel In Eth Zürich in Switzerland, it says that the question of the production of single oxygen has consequences outside the biology. “Everywhere where it is generated, it can damage or react to things that are in the neighborhood,” he says. According to Maknil, the analysis in a new study refers to certain types of batteries and may be part of the explanation of why they sometimes correlated from the inside.