Visualising reactive oxygen species in live mammals and revealing of ROS-related system

Abstract

Of all the aerobic respiration by-products, cytotoxic superoxide derived from mitochondrial-leaked electrons, is the only one known to be disposed of intracellularly. Is this fate the only destiny for mitochondrial-leaked electrons? When Cynomolgus monkeys were injected intravenously with reactive oxygen species (ROS) indicators, the connective tissues of dura mater, facial fascia, pericardium, linea alba, dorsa fascia and other body parts, emitted specific and intense fluorescent signals. Moreover, the fluorescent signals along the linea alba of SD rats, did not result from the local presence of ROS but from the interaction of ROS indicators with electrons flowing through this tissue. Furthermore, the electrons travelling along the linea alba of mice were revealed to originate from mitochondria. These data suggest that mitochondrial-leaked electrons may be transported extracellularly to a hitherto undescribed system of connective tissues, which is pervasively networked, electrically conductive and metabolically related.

Keywords:

• Connective tissue
• cynomolgus monkey
• electron
• mitochondria
• reactive oxygen species

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Fundamental Life Sciences Company Limited, Hong Kong for technical supports and Huanhuan Zhang of the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences for expert help in data acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/jm3w3gv2px.3.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Programme of China under grant No. 2016YFD0400202; National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant Nos. 31500685 and 31271859; Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under grant No. LY16C050002 and Start-Up Fund of Research in Quanzhou Normal University, China under grant No. G16062.