The imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and antioxidant defenses determines the condition called oxidative stress. When there is an increase in ROS production or a decrease in the antioxidant defenses, this systemic antioxidant/pro-oxidant imbalance may lead to the accumulation of oxidative damage, which, in turn, may lead to a modification of biomolecules. These consist of reactions resulting in protein adducts, DNA oxidation, and formation of lipid peroxides, which, in turn, reduce the cellular functional capacity and increase the risk of disease development. The body has natural scavenging systems against free radicals and other reactive species. However, sometimes the endogenous antioxidant capacity is exceeded by the production of ROS. When this occurs, exogenous antioxidants exert important function for the human health. These bioactive compounds act preventing and neutralizing the formation of new reactive species and free radical s .I ns o m ec a s e s ,a n increase of ROS can help the host to resolve an infection or even to control the tumor growth. Finally, the levels of ROS can be perceived by signal transduction pathways involving known targets(i.e.,p53,Ras,andNF-κB) and regulate physiopathological events such as the cellular cycle, apoptosis, and inflammation.Keywords: reactive species, cellular oxidation, antioxidant system, health, disease © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cellular respiration and generation of reactive species in the mitochondria: implications in cell viability and agingOxidative phosphorylation is the center of energy metabolism in plants, animals and several microbial life forms [1]. In eukaryotes, this process occurs in mitochondria. The mitochondria is a cytoplasmic organelle surrounded by two membranes, outer and inner membrane, which main function is the production of most of the phosphate compounds necessary for the energetic balance of the cell. In addition, other functions such as the regulation of the body'sheatgeneration [2][3][4] programmed cell death [5][6][7], reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and cell signaling [8] is also associated with mitochondria. Cellular vitality is directly related to mitochondria, and mitochondrial dysfunctions are frequent causes of accidental cell death [5,[9][10][11], cancer [12, 13], diabetes [14][15][16] and neurodegenerative diseases [17][18][19], among others.The characterization of the respiratory electron chain could be performed in studies using the fractionation of its components by certain detergents that at low concentrations break the interactions between proteins and lipids in the membranes, leaving associations between proteins intact [20]. In electron transport chain, through this process, four protein complexes were found....