Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec;1(12):1101-1103.
doi: 10.1038/s44161-022-00178-7. Epub 2022 Dec 12.

The Goldilocks Oxygen Principle: not too little and not too much

Will R Flanigan  1   2 , Isha H Jain  1   3   4
Affiliations

The Goldilocks Oxygen Principle: not too little and not too much

Will R Flanigan et al. Nat Cardiovasc Res. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Nature has evolved creative ways to maintain oxygen homeostasis, but what happens when these adaptations are insufficient? Here we discuss biochemical failure points across the oxygen spectrum from 'too little' to 'too much' oxygen and their potential contributions to cardiovascular disease.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1 ∣
Fig. 1 ∣. Oxygen-sensitive reactions fail as a function of local tissue PO2.
a, Myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke result in a gradient of oxygen and nutrient deprivation across the tissue. b, Key cellular reactions fail at different oxygen tensions across the tissue, contributing to organ injury. Reactions on the left fail in hypoxia, whereas reactions on the right fail in hyperoxia. Many O2-sensitive reactions remain to be discovered. ETC, electron transport chain; ROS, reactive oxygen species; TET, demethylation enzyme (‘ten-eleven translocation’).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ast T & Mootha VK Nat. Metab 1, 858–860 (2019). - PubMed
    1. Park TJ et al. Science 356, 307–311 (2017). - PubMed
    1. Clark JM & Lambertsen CJ Pharmacol. Rev 23, 37–133 (1971). - PubMed
    1. Frank A et al. Semin. Cardiothorac. Vasc. Anesth 16, 123–132 (2012). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Farber HW et al. J. Heart Lung Transplant 37, 948–955 (2018). - PubMed