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  • Perspective
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Chemistry and biology of reactive oxygen species in signaling or stress responses

Nature Chemical Biology volume 7, pages 504–511 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a family of molecules that are continuously generated, transformed and consumed in all living organisms as a consequence of aerobic life. The traditional view of these reactive oxygen metabolites is one of oxidative stress and damage that leads to decline of tissue and organ systems in aging and disease. However, emerging data show that ROS produced in certain situations can also contribute to physiology and increased fitness. This Perspective provides a focused discussion on what factors lead ROS molecules to become signal and/or stress agents, highlighting how increasing knowledge of the underlying chemistry of ROS can lead to advances in understanding their disparate contributions to biology. An important facet of this emerging area at the chemistry-biology interface is the development of new tools to study these small molecules and their reactivity in complex biological systems.

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Figure 1: Reactions of primary ROS with functional groups on proteins.
Figure 2: Potential layers of regulation for membrane-localized H2O2 signaling.
Figure 3: ROS signaling in physiology.
Figure 4: Chemical tools to study redox biology.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Packard Foundation, Amgen, Astra Zeneca and Novartis and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH; GM 79465) for providing funding for this work. C.J.C. is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. B.C.D. was partially supported by a Chemical Biology Training Grant from the NIH (T32 GM066698). Due to space limitations, we apologize if we inadvertently omitted citations of major contributions to this area.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    Bryan C Dickinson & Christopher J Chang

  2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    Christopher J Chang

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Dickinson, B., Chang, C. Chemistry and biology of reactive oxygen species in signaling or stress responses. Nat Chem Biol 7, 504–511 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.607

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