Inhibition of spontaneous and photo-enhanced lipid peroxidation in mouse epidermal microsomes by epicatechin derivatives from green tea.

In recent years green tea has been shown to afford protection against chemical- and photo-carcinogenesis in several animal tumor bioassay systems. It has been suggested that the wide range of anticarcinogenic properties of green tea may be due to the antioxidant effect of epicatechins present therein. In this study, we assessed whether these epicatechin derivatives (ECDs)--namely (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC), (-)-epicatechin gallate (ECG), (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) and (-)-epicatechin (EC) inhibit spontaneous and photo-enhanced lipid peroxidation (LPO) in mouse epidermal microsomes. Our data indicate that significant inhibition (significance levels for P, < 0.05 to < 0.0001) was evident by EGCG, EGC and ECG in Fe3+/ADP supported LPO. Interestingly each of these epicatechin derivatives was also effective in inhibiting photo-enhanced LPO generated by incubating epidermal microsomes in the presence of silicon phthalocyanine and 650 nm irradiation. However, at equimolar basis, EGCG, which is also the major constituent in GTP, showed maximum inhibitory effects compared to other ECDs. Taken together, our results provide the direct evidence for the antioxidant property of ECDs, and suggest that such an effect may contribute towards anticarcinogenic (specifically anti-skin tumor) promoting effects of green tea.