Hepatocyte-specific deficiency of SOD-2 causes liver failure and promotes tumorigenesis

In the mitochondrial matrix manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD-2) is the essential antioxidant enzyme that degrades reactive oxygen species. The liver has the highest specific MnSOD activity, which implies its important role for maintaining proper organ function and to prevent pathological situations such as cancer. In line with this, we generated hepatocyte-specific SOD-2 knockout mice and found that that ROS levels were enhanced in livers of SOD-2 lacking mice which were reduced in size and displayed signs of liver failure such as intracellular protein droplets, increased apoptotic bodies and Bax levels as we…