Silva, SaraCosta, Eduardo M.Vicente, SandraVeiga, MarianaCalhau, ConceiçãoMorais, Rui M.Pintado, Manuela E.2017-12-192017-12-192017Silva, S., Costa, E. M., Vicente, S., Veiga, M., Calhau, C., Morais, R. M. S. C., Pintado, M. E. (2017). DNA agarose gel electrophoresis for antioxidant analysis: Development of a quantitative approach for phenolic extracts. Food Chemistry, 233, 45-510308-8146http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/23768Most of the fast in vitro assays proposed to determine the antioxidant capacity of a compound/extract lack either biological context or employ complex protocols. Therefore, the present work proposes the improvement of an agarose gel DNA electrophoresis in order to allow for a quantitative estimation of the antioxidant capacity of pure phenolic compounds as well as of a phenolic rich extract, while also considering their possible pro-oxidant effects. The result obtained demonstrated that the proposed method allowed for the evaluation of the protection of DNA oxidation [in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and an H2O2/iron (III) chloride (FeCl3) systems] as well as for the observation of pro-oxidant activities, with the measurements registering interclass correlation coefficients above 0.9. Moreover, this method allowed for the characterization of the antioxidant capacity of a blueberry extract while demonstrating that it had no perceived pro-oxidant effect.engAntioxidant assaysPro-oxidant assaysPhenolic compoundsBlueberry extractAscorbic acidGallic acidDNAjournal article10.1016/j.foodchem.2017.04.0751873-70728501849878128530597000402343100006