Journal of Natural Products 2010-07-23

An efficient and economical MTT assay for determining the antioxidant activity of plant natural product extracts and pure compounds.

Yunbao Liu, Muraleedharan G Nair

Index: J. Nat. Prod. 73 , 1193-5, (2010)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

Antioxidants scavenge free radicals, singlet oxygen, and electrons in cellular redox reactions. The yellow MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] is reduced to a purple formazan by mitochondrial enzymes. NADPH is the basis of established in vitro cell viability assays. An antioxidant assay has been developed utilizing the redox reaction between MTT and selected natural product extracts and purified compounds. This simple, fast, and inexpensive MTT antioxidant assay is comparable with the lipid peroxidation inhibitory assay and can be mechanized to achieve high throughput.