Oxidative stress, human genetic variation, and disease

Oxidative stress has been implicated in numerous pathophysiological conditi ons and also aging. The tools for studying oxidative stress are now expandi ng as a result of the human genome effort and, in particular, expanding kno wledge on human genetic variation. A few genetic variants, mostly in the fo rm of single nucleotide polymorphisms of relevance to oxidative stress are already studied by a molecular epidemiologic approach. A review of the curr ent knowledge on variant human genes that are directly implicated in human protection against oxidative stress is presented. (C) 2001 Academic Press.