Unequivocal evidence in support of the nonenzymatic redox coupling between glutathione/glutathione disulfide and ascorbic acid/dehydroascorbic acid.

Experiments were performed to evaluate the nonenzymatic reaction between glutathione (GSH) and dehydroascorbic acid (DHA). Though both ascorbic acid and glutathione disulfide (GSSG) are formed from this reaction, previous work has focused almost exclusively on measurements of ascorbic acid. In contrast, there is very little information about the formation of GSSG under the same conditions as those used to produce ascorbic acid. The emphasis on ascorbic acid stems from the fact that a spectrophotometric technique is available for its measurement, whereas 1H-NMR or an amino acid analyzer has been used to measure GSSG. The present experiments use a simple, rapid method for accurately and precisely measuring the concentrations of GSSG in a solution. The spectrophotometric (340 nm) procedure uses NADPH and glutathione reductase; analysis time is very short, many replicate samples can be tested and as little as 0.05-0.1 mM GSSG can be detected. Using this method, it is shown that there is an equimolar production of GSSG and ascorbic acid from GSH and DHA and that the decrease in GSH is stoichiometrically related to the increase in the concentration of GSSG. The present findings provide additional insight into the interaction between the GSH/GSSG redox couple and the ascorbic acid/DHA redox couple.