Improved fluorometric determination of malonaldehyde.

Lipoperoxidation is implicated in various pathological conditions. Malonaldehyde (MDA) is the most commonly used marker of this process. We propose simple modifications to Yagi's fluorometric assay for MDA determinations, to avoid long and tedious manipulations by eliminating the first precipitation and washing steps, analogous to HPLC methods, and to increase both the sensitivity and the specificity of the assay by measuring synchronous fluorescence. The proposed technique is easier, faster, and more sensitive than Yagi's method (Academic Press, 1982: Lipid peroxides in biology and medicine). The results obtained with the novel method correlate with those from the HPLC method described by Therasse and Lemonnier (J Chromatogr Biomed Appl 1987;413:237-41).