The Effect of Extracellular Glutathione on the Regulation of Thymocyte Volume in Rats under Conditions of Hypoosmotic Stress.

Abstract

Glutathione (GSH) is a negatively charged tripe tide, which is a major determinant of the cellular redox state and defense against oxidative stress. It is assembled inside and degraded outside the cells and is released under various physiologicaland pathophysiological conditions. The GSH release mechanism is poorly understood at present. In our experiments, thymocytes immersed in a hypo osmotic medium effectively restored their volume by 78.1 ± 5.6% (n = 6) in the control. Glutathione already at a concentration of 0.1 μM significantly suppressed the regulatory decrease in the volume of thymocytes, however, even at high concentrations of the substance, the effect was incomplete, and the cells were able to restore their volume by 69.05 ± 1.3% (n = 6) at 10 μM and by 65.06 ± 1.4% (n = 6) at 100 μM. The semi-maximal effect was observed at 1.3 ± 0.1 μM.