Improved method of total antioxidant assay.

Commercially available analytical kits for the estimation of total antioxidant status are expensive and time-consuming. Most of the commercially available kits for total antioxidants estimation are based on the principle of suppression of ABTS radical cation formation by antioxidant in the serum sample. The method requires stringent assay conditions, like exact incubation time and the temperature (37 degrees C) of the reaction and on an average not more than 40 samples can be analyzed on a day. We have adapted the assay to a microplate, thereby allowing more number of samples to be analyzed per day. Further, the reagent volume required is one fourth than that for the original procedure thereby cutting cost. Thirty samples were analyzed by original method on spectrophotometer and our adapted microplate assay. The values of total antioxidant obtained by the two methods correlated well. Thus, total antioxidant can be estimated reliably using the microplate method.