Carotenoids can act as antioxidants by oxidizing the superoxideradical anion
- 6 November 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
- Vol. 12 (1), 193-200
- https://doi.org/10.1039/b917636e
Abstract
The electron transfer (ET) reaction between carotenoids and the superoxide radical anion is found to be not only a viable process but also a very unique one. The nature of the O2˙− inverts the direction of the transfer, with respect to ET involving other ROS: the O2˙− becomes the electron donor and carotenoids (CAR) the electron acceptor. Therefore the “antioxidant” activity of CAR when reacting with O2˙− lies in their capacity to prevent the formation of oxidant ROS. This peculiar charge transfer is energetically feasible in non-polar environments but not in polar media. In addition the relative reactivity of CAR towards O2˙− is drastically different from their reactivity to other ROS. Asthaxanthin (ASTA) is predicted to be a better O2˙− quencher than LYC and the other CAR. The CAR + O2˙− reactions were found to be diffusion controlled. The agreement with available experimental data supports the density functional theory results from the present work.This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
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