Antioxidant Capacity Assay and its Application in Food Samples

Scientific research has spent more and more focus onantioxidants over the past decade. This is largely due toantioxidants\' biological ability to counteract oxidative stress,an important aspect of many human diseases. Therefore, it is ofgreat interest to health providers and general public to develop areliable standard protocol to assess antioxidant concentrations incommon food. However, a literature search revealed that themajority of the existing antioxidant capacity assays are based onin vitro, and they cannot be used to establish a product\'sbiological relevance, i.e. bioavailability and bioactivity.Although there are a few assays that are cell-based, there is alack of validation, and some of the assays take days to finish.This book talks about a cell-based antioxidant capacity assay usinga fused plasmid (sodA::gfp) which contains green fluorescentprotein as the reporting mechanism. After showing its robustnessthrough adequate validation, this assay was conveniently applied toassess common food samples. This book should be especially usefulto food industry and will help to stimulate health awareness andhabituate a healthy eating style.