Oxygen in human health from life to death – An approach to teaching redox biology and signaling to graduate and medical students

• The ability to sense oxygen and respond to oxidative stress is ancient.
• Chemical and kinetic properties of ROS are key to understanding redox signaling.
• Redox signaling participates in normal control of cell proliferation and death.
• Aberrant redox signaling contributes to the hallmarks of cancer.
• Novel redox-based chemotherapeutics are being developed.

In the absence of oxygen human life is measured in minutes. In the presence of oxygen, normal metabolism generates reactive species (ROS) that have the potential to cause cell injury contributing to human aging and disease. Between these extremes, organisms have developed means for sensing oxygen and ROS and regulating their cellular processes in response. Redox signaling contributes to the control of cell proliferation and death. Aberrant redox signaling underlies many human diseases. The attributes acquired by altered redox homeostasis in cancer cells illustrate this particularly well. This teaching review and the accompanying illustrations provide an introduction to redox biology and signaling aimed at instructors of graduate and medical students.

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