CO2 exacerbates oxygen toxicity

A research team at the Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne (Bacterial Chemistry Laboratory, CNRS, Marseille) has demonstrated that carbon dioxide (CO) plays a role in the formation of oxidative damage . Under conditions of oxidative stress, certain types of damage (cell death, some DNA lesions, mutation frequency, etc.) affecting the model organism E tend to increase depending on the level of atmospheric CO. The CO levels studied range from 40 ppm(1) to the current projections for 2100 (1,000 ppm). The results indicate that the predicted increase in atmospheric CO should have a direct effect on living organisms. A paper on this work will be published in the February 25, 2011 issue of .