A Method for Evaluation of Antioxidant Activity Based on Inhibition of Free Radical-Induced Erythrocyte Hemolysis

There are many in vitro methods for evaluating antioxidant activity. In this chapter, we describe an operationally simple cell-based assay, oxidative hemolysis inhibition assay (OxHLIA). OxHLIA is based on inhibition of free radical-induced membrane damage in erythrocytes by antioxidants. The advantage of this method is that it uses peroxyl radicals as pro-oxidants and erythrocytes as oxidizable targets so that the results obtained reflect biologically relevant radical-scavenging activity and microlocalization of antioxidants. We also present here a comparison of OxHLIA with other common methods (DPPH, ABTS^•+ , and ORAC assays).