Lucigenin chemiluminesence. A new approach to study the redox activity of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cells.

OBJECTIVES To study the mechanism and to measure the oxygenation/reduction activity of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cells in an isotonic solution by means of lucigenin dependent chemiluminescence. METHODS All the measurements of the chemiluminescence redox activity of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cell samples in suspension medium, were carried out using a photon counting system especially designed to the purpose. The areas under the chemiluminescence kinetic curves were measured at different cell physiological conditions and at different agents concentrations effect. RESULTS The rates of lucigenin chemiluminescence redox functional activity of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cells were significantly different from normal oxygenation/reduction activity at different physiological environments of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cells suspension conditions (i.e. cell membrane permeability changes, presence and absence of oxidative or reductive agents at different concentrations and oxy/hydroxy free radical protective agents). CONCLUSIONS The results explain more fully the mechanism and the value of a lucigenin dependent chemiluminescence probe of the redox functional activity of Ehrlich ascetic tumor cells (at different physiological conditions of suspension).