Hemichrome formation, lipid peroxidation, enzyme inactivation and protein degradation as indexes of oxidative damage in homogenates of chicken kidney and liver.

The change in relative hemichrome formation (RHF) was investigated as a potential marker of oxidative damage in kidney and liver homogenates prepared from chicks fed diets deficient or adequate in vitamin E. RHF gave an earlier indication of oxidative damage in tissue homogenates than the formation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) or decrease in glutathione peroxidase activity (GPXA). RHF correlated significantly with both TBARS and GPXA. The correlations were 0.64 (P < 0.0001) and -0.57 (P = 0.0002) in kidney homogenates and 0.53 (P = 0.0006) and -0.71 (P < 0.0001) in liver homogenates. The correlation between RHF and the sum of TBARS and GPXA was also highly significant in both kidney and liver homogenates.