Oxygen, Hypoxia, and Stress

Abstract excerpt

Since cyanobacteria began to photosynthesize and introduce the colorless and odorless gas oxygen into the earth's atmosphere some 2.5 billion years ago, human evolution has been intrinsically linked to this critical molecule. Initially, the electrophilic chemical properties of oxygen rendered it a formidable toxic challenge to organisms; however, eukaryotic cells, following the incorporation of bacterial-derived...