Oxidative stress in equine medicine - Current knowledge

Abstract

SummaryOxidative stress has become of increasing interest in research and human medicine. Oxidants or reactive oxygen species are generated by metabolic reactions and play an important role for the immune defence and the "redox-regulation" of gene expression. In physiological conditions, different categories of antioxidants maintain the equilibrium between the pro-oxidant burden and the endogenous antioxidant defence. However, when an imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants in favour of oxidants occurs, oxidative stress might induce irreversible lesions that can be evidenced and characterised by oxidant markers. In equine medicine, it has been shown that oxidative stress is occurring in lower airway disease and equine motor neuron disease. Moreover, adapted antioxidants therapy appears to have a beneficial effect on the antioxidant-oxidant imbalance. Exercise-induced oxidative stress and its impact on animal welfare and performance are also under investigation in equine sports medicine. Oxidative stress has been demonstrated to depend on exercise type, intensity and duration. It might be modulated by training and/or adapted antioxidant therapy, aiming to maintain the antioxidant-oxidant equilibrium and thereby to improve animal welfare.

Epigenetic control of exercise adaptations in the equine athlete: Current evidence and future directions

“…Notably, oxidative stress contributes to cellular damage, but also to adaptation to endurance exercise and activating anti‐oxidant defence mechanisms 114 . It has a critical role in regulating immunity to combat pathogens via the redox‐regulation of gene expression mainly through the control of inflammatory genes 115 . Importantly, ROS appears to be an important factor governing the epigenetic landscape and exercise‐induced modifications to the DNA methylome 116,117 .…”

Whole cottonseed inclusion in starter feeds improves performance, inflammometabolic profile, and rumination behavior in Holstein dairy calves

“…Together with the higher levels of β-carotene and tocopherol and the lower levels of ceruloplasmin and myeloperoxidase, we could assume a lower degree of inflammation and oxidative stress in WCS than CTR group, maybe due to the better rumen function and as a consequence less damage at the level of the epithelia, which involves less risk of compromising gut permeability. In fact, myeloperoxidase is an important enzyme involved in the production of ROS during inflammatory processes ( Kirschvink and Lekeux, 2002 ) and ceruloplasmin is an acute-phase protein whose increase is associated with inflammation or infection ( Hajimohammadi et al, 2013 ). Regarding liver function biomarkers, paraoxonase levels resulted greater in WCS group than CTR.…”