9 1998by Humana Press Inc. All rights of any nature, whatsoever,reserved. 1044-7393/98/3402-3-0157$11.00 Effect of Starvation and Insulin-Induced Hypoglycemia on Oxidative Stress Scavenger System and Electron Transport Chain Complexes from Rat Brain, Liver, and Kidney SANJEEV KUMARBHARDWAJ, MADAN LAL SHARMA, GOVIND GULATI, ARVIND CHHABRA,REEU^ KAUSHIK, POONAM SHARMA,AND GURCHARAN KAUR* Department of Biotechnology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar 143 005 (Pb), India, E-maih biotech@gndu.ernet.in Received January 16, 1998; Accepted May 1, 1998 ABSTRACT Considerable evidence suggests that oxidative stress plays an important role in tissue damage associated with hypoglycemia and other metabolic disorders. The altered brain neurotransmitters metab- olism, cerebral electrolyte contents, and impaired blood-brain barrier function may contribute to CNS dysfunction in hypoglycemia. The present study elucidates the effect of starvation and insulin-induced hypoglycemia on the free radical scavanger system--reduced glutath- ione (GSH) content, glutathione S-transferase (GST), glutathione per- oxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), 7-glutamyl transpeptidase (7-GTP), 7-glutamyl cystein synthetase (7-GCS), catalase and superox- ide dismutase (SOD), and mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) complexes I-IV from three different regions of rat brain, namely cere- bral hemispheres (CH), cerebellum (CB), and brainstem (BS). Periph- eral organs, such as liver and kidney, were also studied. Significant changes in these enzymic activities were observed. The analysis of such alterations is important in ultimately determining the basis of neuronal dysfunction during metabolic stress conditions, such as hypoglycemia, *Author to whom all correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed. Molecular and Chemical Neuropathology ] 57 Vol. 34, 1998