Glutathione Assay (Colorimetric)

Reduced glutathione (L-γ-glutamyl-L-cysteinylglycine), a tripeptide, serves as a key antioxidant in animal, plant, fungi and bacteria by providing free thiol. Glutathione exist in reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG; gluthathione disulphide) forms in cells and tissues, and the concentration of glutathione range from 0.5 to 10mM in animal cells¹. The majority (90-95 %) of glutathione exist in reduced form (GSH) in healthy cells. GSH provides reducing equivalents to antioxidant enzymes, hydroxyl radicals, ROS and is itself oxidized to GSSG. Therefore GSH/GSSG ratio is critical indicator of the health of cell. During oxidative stress there is decrease in levels of GSH and increase in levels of GSSG and thus GSH/GSSG ratio decreases.

Glutathione colorimetric assay kit is designed to measure reduced glutathione (GSH), oxidized glutathione (GSSG) and total glutathione (GSH+GSSG) concentrations in wide range of samples like, blood, plasma, serum, cultured cells and tissue. The assay involves carefully optimized enzymatic recycling method using glutathione reductase and Ellman’s reagent (DTNB) ².

Features

• Measure total, oxidized (GSSG) and reduced (GSH) glutathione colorimetrically 
• Assay Range: 0.1-2.5 μM for GSSG and for GSH it would be 0.2-5 μM
• Plated based, colorimetric measurement at 405-415nm
• End-point and kinetic methods
• 225 and 450 assay sizes available
• The assay is designed to measure glutathione in wide range of samples such as plasma, blood, serum, urine, cultured cells, tissue etc. 

Applications

• Total Glutathione Colorimetric assay kit measures total, oxidized and reduced glutathione in wide range of samples such as blood, plasma, serum, cultured cells and tissues
• Estimating glutathione in cells is one of the ways to measure oxidative stress and this assay is also vital for mitochondrial toxicity screening
• GSH/GSSG ratio decreases in many pathological diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, artherosclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s^{3, 4} and thus estimating glutathione is vital in this area of research.