Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Simulation Of Free Radical Reactions In Biology And Medicine: A New Two-Compartment Kinetic Model Of Intracellular Lipid Peroxidation, Charles F. Babbs, Melissa Gale Steiner

Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

To explore mechanisms of free radical reactions leading to intracellular lipid peroxidation in living systems, we developed a computational model of up to 109 simultaneous enzymatic and free radical reactions thought to be involved in the initiation, propagation, and termination of membrane lipid peroxidation. Rate constants for the various reactions were obtained from the published literature. The simulation model included a lipid membrane compartment and an aqueous cytosolic compartment, between which various chemical species were partitioned. Lipid peroxidation was initiated by the iron-catalyzed, superoxide-driven Fenton reaction. A "C"-language computer program implemented numerical solution of the steady-state rate equations for concentrations …