Figure 2.

Response of erythrocytes towards oxidative stress when carnosine is present in the medium (a) or after pre-loading of cells with carnosine (b,c). (a): Erythrocytes from a healthy volunteer (male, age 29) were incubated for 1 h in medium containing different concentrations of t-BHP and 3 different concentrations of carnosine. (b,c): Cells from the same individual were preloaded with carnosine for 24 h, medium removed and fresh medium with different concentrations of tBHP was added for 1 h. After incubation, ATP in cell lysates was determined in both experiments. Here, for each concentration of carnosine employed cells not exposed to tBHP (set as 100%) were used for normalization (Note: control not seen because of the logarithmic presentation of the data). Points of different t-BHP concentrations are connected with a B-Spline (a,b). (c): Separate comparison of viability at different concentrations of tBHP in erythrocytes pretreated with different concentrations of carnosine from the experiment presented in (b). Here, for each concentration of tBHP employed, cells not pretreated with carnosine (set as 100%) were used for normalization (0 vs. 25, 50 or 100 mM, respectively, *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.005; *** p < 0.0005).