Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a multifaceted disease characterized by high blood pressure in the lungs, a life-threatening complication with no current cure. An important pathophysiological mechanism in PH is oxidative stress which promote abnormal vascular responses. Superoxide dismutases are the major antioxidant defense systems against O2- by catalyzing dimutations of O2- into hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and molecular oxygen (O2). There is substantial experimental evidence that show the promise of a variety of antioxidant therapies for different forms of PH. SOD mimetics (metalloporphyrins) are a class of catalytic antioxidants that scavenge a wide range of ROS. Because SODs have been well-characterized in numerous disease models, their dysregulation provide important insight of how ROS impacts the pulmonary vasculature, thus representing important targets for novel antioxidant strategies. Researchers at the University of Colorado have developed new antioxidant strategies to treatment of PH in the form of peptide therapeutics from botanical extracts. These bioactive peptides have shown promise for inhibiting and/or scavenging reactive oxygen species by attenuating systolic pressure and hypertrophy in hypoxic mice.
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