Vol. 57, No.

1/2010
139142
on-line at: www.actabp.pl
Review

Determination of antiradical and antioxidant activity:

basic principles and new insights
*

Gunars Tirzitis1 and Grzegorz Bartosz2,3

1Laboratory of Membranoactive Compounds, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Riga, Latvia; 2Department of Molecular Biophysics, University
of d, 3Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, University of Rzeszw, Poland

Although the term antioxidant is used very frequently,

there are problems with the definition of antioxidants
and estimation of antioxidant activity. The distinction
between antioxidant and antiradical activities is not always obvious. This minireview discusses critically the
principles, advantages and limitations of the most frequently used methods of estimation of antiradical and
antioxidant activities.
Keywords: antioxidant, antiradical, DPPH, ABTS, hydroxyl radical
Received: 10 November, 2009; revised: 05 February, 2010; accepted:
06 February, 2010; available on-line: 11 May, 2010

CURRENT STATE OF THE ART

It is difficult these days to open a popular science

magazine or medical journal without seeing an article
about the role of free radicals in human diseases (Gutteridge & Halliwell, 1994). This sentence written in 1994
by the leading scientists in the field of free radicals and
antioxidants, John Gutteridge and Barry Halliwell is true
today as well. Another statement of those authors, that
antioxidant is a term widely used but rarely defined
(Halliwell & Gutteridge, 1999), has also remained true. A
Google search for antioxidants definition brings more
than 600000 entries! Halliwell and Gutteridge propose
to define an antioxidant as any substance that, when
present at low concentration compared with those of an
oxidizable substrate, significantly delays or prevents oxidation of that substrate (Halliwell & Gutteridge, 1999).
This definition covers all oxidation processes, both radical and non-radical ones. But, as noted elsewhere, a generic definition of an antioxidant is not experimentally
constructive unless it is associated with the notion of the
oxidant that has to be neutralized (Azzi et al., 2004).
Moreover, the validity of the term antioxidant depends
on the environment of its action, viz. whether we consider an in vitro or in vivo action. In this context a precise
definition of conditions and processes in which antioxidant action is studied becomes crucial. Outside this context, a statement that some compound is an antioxidant
may not bring any biologically meaningful information.
The literature of the last decade concerning free radical reactions in vivo shows that our understanding of
these processes in the organism, both under normal
conditions and in pathological situations, has changed
considerably. Free radicals and reactive oxygen species
in general are no longer seen only as destructive factors
but also (and perhaps first of all) as messengers involved
in intracellular and intercellular signalling (Bartosz, 2005;
2009; Halliwell, 2006). The revision of the ideas on the

role of free radical reactions in the functioning of cells

and organisms has led to a new concept of redox equilibrium. According to this hypothesis, oxidative stress is
a modulation of thiol redox reactions, involved mainly
in signalling pathways. Therefore, non-radical oxidants
(enzymatically generated hydrogen peroxide, other peroxides, quinones, etc.) play a basic role in the oxidation
of thiols for the sake of signalling, without the necessity
of formation of free radical intermediates (Ghezzi et al.,
2005; Jones, 2006; 2008).
Similar changes are taking place with respect to our
understanding of the role of vitamin E (-tocopherol) in
living processes. For a long time it was believed that the
main function of vitamin E is its antioxidant action in
biomembranes. Within the last few years it has become
clear that the antioxidant activity of vitamin E is not the
only one (and perhaps not the most important) of its
physiological functions (Ricciarelli et al., 2001; Atkinson
et al., 2008; Jones, 2008; Engin, 2009). The common
belief of the beneficial health-improving action of plant
phenolics has also been revised (Halliwell, 2007).
In view of the substantial changes in the understanding of the role of reactive oxygen species and antioxidants in living systems, a critical re-evaluation of the
methods of determination of the antioxidant activity is
also necessary.
ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIRADICAL ACTIVITY

The general methods of determination of antioxidant activity are summarized in many reviews, including (Sanchez-Moreno, 2002; Huang et al., 2005; Frankel & Finley, 2008). Due to their practical significance
much attention is paid to studies of natural products and
food supplements (Davalos et al., 2003; Moon & Shinamoto, 2009). Numerous studies have demonstrated that
the antioxidant activity measured depends substantially
on the test system used (Janaszewska & Bartosz, 2002;
Bauzaite et al., 2003) and recommended to base any conclusions on at least two different test systems (Moon &
Shinamoto, 2009).
Most of the methods of determination of total antioxidant activity characterize the ability of the tested
e-mail: [email protected]
paper was presented at the COST B-35 Work Group 4 Open
Workshop Natural and synthetic antioxidants, September 2526,
2009, Rzeszw, Poland.
Abbreviations: ABTS, 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid; BHT, butylhydroxytoluene; DPPH, 1,1-diprenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl; TAS, total antioxidant status.

*The

140
G. Tirzitis, G. Bartosz

compound or product to scavenge free radicals and/or

to complex metal ions driving the oxidation process.
It should be emphasized that there is a great difference between antiradical and antioxidant activity
and that they do not necessarily coincide. According to
Burlakova and coworkers (1975) the antiradical activity
characterizes the ability of compounds to react with free
radicals (in a single free radical reaction), but antioxidant activity represents the ability to inhibit the process
of oxidation (which usually, at least in the case of lipids, involves a set of different reactions). Consequently,
all test systems using a stable free radical (for example,
DPPH, ABTS, etc) give information on the radical scavenging or antiradical activity, although in many cases this
activity does not correspond to the antioxidant activity.
In order to obtain information about the real antioxidant activity with respect to lipids or food stabilization,
it is necessary to carry out the study on the real product
(plant oil, lipoproteins, etc.).
DPPH AND GALVINOXYL ANTIRADICAL ACTIVITY TEST
SYSTEMS

1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH; I) is a stable

free radical. On accepting hydrogen from a corresponding donor, its solutions lose the characteristic deep purple (max 515517 nm) colour. DPPH is very popular for
the study of natural antioxidants (Villano et al., 2007).
The PubMed database shows that this radical has been
employed in more than 850 studies since 1969.
O2N

NO2

N
NO2

The antiradical activity of tested compounds is

expressed as a relative or absolute decrease of concentration of DPPH or as EC50 (concentration of a
compound decreasing the absorbance of a DPPH solution by 50%). The rate of reaction of various antioxidants with DPPH differs (Janaszewska & Bartosz,
2002). Very often the assay is performed according to
the method described in (Bondet et al., 1997). In spite
of the wide use of DPPH, this test system in some
cases gives incorrect results and recommendations for
the proper application of the method have been formulated (Nenadis & Tsimidou, 2002; Molyneux, 2004;
Sharma & Bhat, 2009). It is necessary to note that in
the DPPH test system BHT, a strong hydrophobic
antioxidant, shows low reactivity (Nenadis & Tsimidou, 2002; Musialik & Litwinienko, 2005; Sharma &
Bhat, 2009). Some complications could be caused by
partial ionization of the tested compounds, which affects the rate of their reaction with DPPH, making it
pH-dependent (Musialik & Litwinienko, 2005).
DPPH is a N-centred stable radical. From our experience the best way of measuring free radical scavenging (antiradical) activity would be to use the Ocentred stable radical galvinoxyl (II) which is more
closely related to the physiologically acting oxygen
radicals than is DPPH.

C(CH3)3

(CH3)3C
O

2010

CH

C(CH3)3

(CH3)3C
II

This stable radical is commercially available; its solutions have the absorbance maximum in the visible region
(max=432 nm) and it is recommended for studies with
electron and hydrogen donating compounds (Shi et al.,
2001). Comparing with DPPH, galvinoxyl is more reactive towards phenolics.
ABTS-BASED TEST SYSTEMS

The peroxidase substrate 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS), forming a relatively stable radical (ABTS) upon one-electron oxidation, has become a popular substrate for estimation of
total antioxidant capacity. Kinetic assays, including the
commercialized TAS assay (Randox), are based on the
inhibition of the formation of ABTS by one-electron
oxidants (Bartosz & Bartosz, 1999; Bartosz, 2003). A
simpler and more frequently applied approach, is the
decolorization of preformed ABTS (Re et al., 1999).
An obvious drawback of ABTS-based assays is the
promiscuity of reactions of ABTS which is a nonphysiological free radical.
HYDROXYL RADICAL SCAVENGING ACTIVITY

Generation of hydroxyl radicals is crucial for the irreversible damage inflicted by oxidative stress (Halliwell
& Gutteridge, 1999). This generation mainly proceeds via
Fenton reaction:
H2O2 + Fe2+ Fe3+ + HO + HO,
as well as in reaction between hypochlorous acid and superoxide anion:
HOCl + O2 O2 + Cl + HO

The rate constant of the latter reaction is greater than

that of the reaction of Fe2+ with H2O2 [2]. Decomposition of peroxynitrous acid also yields HO:
HONOO NO2 + HO

This reaction seems to be responsible for some 2030% of the decay of peroxynitrite (Ferrer-Sueta & Radi,
2009).
The hydroxyl radical is an extremely reactive species
and reacts at a high rate (k ~ 1091010 M1s1) with all
surrounding molecules proteins, lipids, nucleic acids
and sugars. Because the hydroxyl radical recombination
HO + OH H2O2
is also very fast (k=5109 M1s1) the steady-state concentration of hydroxyl radical is practically zero (Halliwell
& Gutteridge, 1999). Consequently, in spite of their popularity, the methods for determination of reactivity between

Vol. 57
Antiradical and antioxidant activity

141

excessive vitamin E supplements may even be harmful

(Miller et al., 2005).
Therefore, it is suggested that the so-called antioxidant hypothesis should be considered an intellectual
shortcut possibly biasing the real understanding of the
molecular mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects
of various classes of substances including food additives.
On the basis of recent work, it is proposed that specific
molecules of nutritional interest (in particular polyphenols) may act by their direct interaction with nuclear receptors and by modulation of the signalling pathways of
the cell (Virgili & Marino, 2008).
Recently, Knasmller and co-authors (2008) carefully
examined the methods of estimation of antioxidant/antiradical activities at various levels of biological organization and presented conclusions as the pros and cons
of each method as well as for the suitability of specific
methods for the evaluation of dietary antioxidants. The
most important facets of this comparison are shown in
Fig. 1.
Acknowledgement

This work was carried out in frame of the COST B35

action.
The authors express many thanks to Professor
A. Kuksis (University of Toronto, Canada) for recommendations and elaboration of English.
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Figure 1. Advantages and disadvantages of different experimental approaches used to investigate ROSprotective effects of
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