doi:10.1155/2012/163913 Review Article The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly about Oxidative Stress

Copyright © 2012 M. Jimenez-Del-Rio and C. Velez-Pardo. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and cancer (e.g., leukemia) are the most devastating disorders affecting millions of people worldwide. Except for some kind of cancers, no effective and/or definitive therapeutic treatment aimed to reduce or to retard the clinic and pathologic symptoms induced by AD and PD is presently available. Therefore, it is urgently needed to understand the molecular basis of these disorders. Since oxidative stress (OS) is an important etiologic factor of the pathologic process of AD, PD, and cancer, understanding how intracellular signaling pathways respond to OS will have a significant implication in the therapy of these diseases. Here, we propose a model of minimal completeness of cell death signaling induced by OS as a mechanistic explanation of neuronal and cancer cell demise. This mechanism might provide the basis for therapeutic design strategies. Finally, we will attempt to associate PD, cancer, and OS. This paper critically analyzes the evidence that support the “oxidative stress model ” in neurodegeneration and cancer. 1. The Verdict: Oxygen Is Guilty, Not Guilty Oxidative stress (OS) has become a major topic in all areas of medical knowledge. Entry of the term “oxidative stress ” in PubMe