Fig. 1.

The regulation of antioxidant and electrophile detoxification gene expression in mouse liver treated with either acrolein, BHA, or SFN. A, qRT-PCR analysis of expression of Aldh1a1 and other electrophile detoxification genes in mouse liver after treatment with either acrolein, BHA, or SFN. For the acrolein experiment, C57BL/6J mice fed a laboratory chow diet were treated with water (control) or 5 mg/kg acrolein by gavage daily for 7 days (n = 5). For BHA and SFN experiments, C57BL/6J mice fed an AIN-76 diet were fed a diet containing 0.45% BHA for 7 days or administered 10 mg/kg SFN daily for 7 days by gavage (n = 4). Total RNA was extracted from the liver and reverse-transcribed to cDNA, and qRT-PCR analysis of Aldh1a1, NQO-1, and HO-1 gene expression was performed as described under Materials and Methods. *, p < 0.05, significantly different compared with controls (Student's t test). B, increased liver cytosolic NAD⁺-dependent ALDH activity after treatment with either BHA or acrolein. Treatment by BHA, acrolein, or SFN was as indicated above. Liver cytosolic ALDH activity was measured as described under Materials and Methods using 1 mM propionaldehyde as substrate and either NAD⁺ or NADP⁺ as cofactor. Specific activities (nanomoles per minute per milligram of protein) for cytosolic fractions were 2.22 ± 0.24 (NAD⁺) and 15.8 ± 0.51 (NADP⁺) for controls; 9.97 ± 2.28 (NAD⁺) and 11.95 ± 0.88 (NADP⁺) for BHA-treated animals. *, p < 0.05, significantly different from controls (Student's t test).