A standardized kinetic model to evaluate the antioxidant activity responses. The β-Carotene method as a case study.

Abstract

The β-carotene (βC) bleaching assay, a common method for evaluating antioxidant activity (AA), which operates on a system of lipid micelles in an aqueous environment is a well accepted model for testing the AA of foods. In this work, we present a highly reproducible procedure for microplate assay using a kinetic model for quantifying the AA, which produces stable and meaningful characterizations. The microplate assay provides an appropriate tool for ensuring that sample series with a large number of items can be simultaneously assessed. The application of these resources produce very consistent results, which provide robust and meaningful criteria to compare in detail the characteristics of antioxidant (A) agents.