RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Effect of Anesthesia Gases on the Oxygen Reduction Reaction
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.11.29.518334
DO 10.1101/2022.11.29.518334
A1 Anu Gupta
A1 Yutao Sang
A1 Claudio Fontanesi
A1 Luca Turin
A1 Ron Naaman
YR 2023
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/01/25/2022.11.29.518334.abstract
AB The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is of high importance, among others because of its role in cellular respiration and in the operation of fuel cells. Recently, a possible relation between respiration and general anesthesia has been found. This work aims to explore whether anesthesia related gases affect the ORR. In ORR, oxygen which is in its triplet ground state is reduced to form products that are all in the singlet state. While this process is “in principle” forbidden because of spin conservation, it is known that if the electrons transferred in the ORR are spin polarized, the reaction occurs efficiently. Here we show, in electrochemical experiments, that the efficiency of the oxygen reduction is reduced by the presence of general anesthetics in solution. We suggest that a spin-orbit coupling to the anesthetics depolarizes the spins. This causes both a reduction in reaction efficiency and a change in the reaction products. The findings may point to a possible relation between ORR efficiency and anesthetic action.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.