Different efficiency of various synthetic antioxidants towards NADPH induced chemiluminescence in rat liver microsomes.

The chemiluminigenic probes luminol and lucigenin have been employed to study the production of reactive oxygen species during NADPH oxidation in microsomal preparations. Light emission obtained with lucigenin is 1,000 fold that obtained with luminol. Common food antioxidants differ widely in their ability to cope with microsomal oxygen activation. Propyl gallate proved to be the most potent chemiluminescence inhibitor among five compounds tested while butylated hydroxytoluene was virtually inefficient.