Quercetin may act as a cytotoxic prooxidant after its metabolic activation to semiquinone and quinoidal product

In the last ten years, there has been an important increase in interest in quercetin action as a unique antioxidant, but its putative role in numerous prooxidant effects is also being continually updated. The mechanism underlying this undesirable ability seems to involve its metabolic oxidoreductive activation. Based on the structural properties of quercetin, we have investigated whether its catechol moiety may be the potential tool for revealed toxicity. We demonstrated, with an ESR spin-stabilization technique coupled to conventional spectrophotometry, that o-semiquinone and o-quinone are indeed the products of enzymatically catalyzed oxidative degradation of quercetin. The former radical might serve to facilitate the formation of superoxide and depletion of GSH, which could confer a specificity of its prooxidative action in situ. The observed one-electron reduction of o-quinone may enrich the semiquinone pool, thereby magnifying its effect. The two-electron reduction of quinone can result in constant resupply of quercetin in situ, thereby also modulating another pathway of its known biological activities. We have also tried to see whether the intracellular oxidative degradation of quercetin can be confirmed under the controlled conditions of model monolayer cell cultures. The results are indicative of the intracellular metabolic activation of quercetin to o-quinone, the process which can be partially associated with the observed concentration-dependent cytotoxic effect of quercetin.