ABSTRACT
The biomedical relevance of oxygen-derived free radicals stems in large part from the fact that many mammalian cell types, notably polymorphonuclear (PMNs) leukocytes and macrophages, can generate such radicals when properly stimulated, and that the radicals so produced are thought to be deleterious to the surrounding target tissues. One of the first naturally occurring macromolecules shown to be susceptible to free radical degradation was hyaluronic acid (HA), and in fact there is now good reason to believe that oxy radical action is the probable mechanism of HA degradation in vivo, at least in the inflamed joint. It is not surprising, therefore, that investigators from many disciplines have studied HA degradation as a model system for evaluation of radical scavenging drugs, mechanisms of oxy radical propagation, etc.
