Doxorubicin has been shown to cause nephrotoxicity by producing free radical species that can damage the kidney. When generation of the free radicals increase, and they begin to accumulate in the tissue a scenario of oxidative stress is stablished where an imbalance between antioxidant enzymes and free radicals can be observed. Oxidative stress is very damaging to the kidney and treatment with doxorubicin is often the cause of renal injury in cancer patients. Oxidative stress can also be explained as mostly a decreasing in antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT) while increasing nitric oxide, a free radical gas (Ayla, et al., 2011). The antioxidant enzymes allow the change of radical oxygen species to become water that can stay in the body without causing damage. Creatine has been suspected to act as an antioxidant enzyme in studies such as Sestili, et al., 2011.

 

Our data showed the antioxidant enzymes, GPx and CAT were lower with creatine introduced, our expressions GPx and CAT had both been similarly decreased showing that the groups with creatine and DOX treatment was significantly lower enzyme expressions. The same enzyme expressions for the creatine and saline group had also slightly lower expression, while not enough to have supportive evidence it could lead to possible future studies. We suspect that creatine is acting as a direct antioxidant allowing the other antioxidant enzymes investigated, GPx and CAT, to remain downregulated. In normal conditions, increased free radicals would lead to an increased production of antioxidant enzymes. However, as creatine is being introduced in higher doses it accumulates in the body and interacts with the free radicals upon their formation. These preliminary findings also suggest that further studies are required to better understand creatine as an antioxidant and see if the enzymes have a higher and faster quenching power than that of GPx and CAT.