Advances in methods for the determination of biologically relevant lipid peroxidation products

Abstract

Lipid peroxidation is recognized to be an important contributor to many chronic diseases, especially those of an inflammatory pathology. In addition to their value as markers of oxidative damage, lipid peroxidation products have also been shown to have a wide variety of biological and cell signalling effects. In view of this, accurate and sensitive methods for the measurement of lipid peroxidation products are essential. Although some assays have been described for many years, improvements in protocols are continually being reported and, with recent advances in instrumentation and technology, highly specialized and informative techniques are increasingly used. This article gives an overview of the most currently used methods and then addresses the recent advances in some specific approaches. The focus is on analysis of oxysterols, F₂-isoprostanes and oxidized phospholipids by gas chromatography or liquid chromatography mass spectrometry techniques and immunoassays for the detection of 4-hydroxynonenal.

Keywords::

• Oxidative stress
• oxysterols
• F₂-isoprostanes
• 4-hydroxynonenal
• aldehydes
• mass spectrometry
• ELISA
• immunohistochemistry

Acknowledgements

All authors would like to acknowledge the support of COST Action B35 on Lipid Peroxidation Associated Disorders. CMS would like to thank Andy Pitt for helpful scientific discussions and Kyle Bryce for assistance with preparation of the manuscript. NZ and KZ also acknowledge support of the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. WS thanks Nikolaus Bresgen, Peter Eckl and Stefan Quast for the support during the analytical work and, furthermore, Francesco Carluccio and Hannelore Hampl for delivery of biological samples and fascinating clinical discussions. IW thanks Daniela Peter for support in mass spectrometric analyses, Drs Wolfgang Augustin, Andreas Gardemann and Lorenz Schild for continuous interest and scientific discussions, Drs Jaffar Nourooz-Zadeh, Helmut Sies, Tankred Schewe, Werner Siems, Harald Gollnick, Jens Grundmann and Sven Quist for long-standing cooperation in the field.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This paper was first published online on Early Online on 14 July 2010.