Microplate Superoxide Dismutase Assay Employing a Nonenzymatic Superoxide Generator

✍ Scribed by James F. Ewing; David R. Janero

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 106 KB
• Volume: 232
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2697
• DOI: 10.1006/abio.1995.0014

✦ Synopsis

The antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (EC 1.15.1.1) (SOD) catalyzes the conversion of superoxide anion radical (O2.-) to hydrogen peroxide and molecular oxygen. SOD helps prevent tissue damage by O2.- and its metabolites, and augmentation of tissue SOD is a useful therapeutic strategy in certain diseases having an oxidative-injury component. Routine application of direct SOD assays is not technically facile, since the short half-life of the O2.- substrate and its free radical nature necessitate specialized analytical equipment to detect and measure O2.- chemically. Consequently, indirect SOD assays which monitor some change in an indicator substance reacting with O2.- are routinely used, particularly for biological samples. Limitations of indirect test systems utilizing heme-based indicators for the presence of O2.- and/or enzymatic O2.- generators led us to develop a SOD microassay based on spectrophotometric assessment of O2.- mediated nitro blue tetrazolium reduction by an aerobic mixture of NADH and phenazine methosulfate, which produces superoxide chemically at nonacidic pH (Rao, Free Radical Biol. Med. 7, 513-519, 1989). The proposed SOD assay system is formatted for use in an automated 96-well microplate reader and has the virtues of a nonheme indicator, a nonenzymatic O2.- source, physiological pH, and economy of time and materials. The assay has been applied to measure purified and tissue SOD (Cu,Zn- and Mn-types) activity as well as O2.- turnover by small-molecule "SOD mimetics."