Quenching of reactive oxidative species by probucol and comparison with other antioxidants.

One-electron oxidation of the antiatherogenic and antiatherosclerotic drug probucol has been studied in relation to its activity as an antioxidant. Oxidation by triplet excited states of duroquinone and benzophenone, and by the inorganic radicals Br2.- and N3., lead to the formation of a transient absorption at 500 nm. This was identified by time-resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy as the phenoxyl radical from probucol, formed by hydrogen atom or electron plus proton loss from one of the phenolic groups of probucol. The reactivity of probucol with triplet duroquinone and triplet benzophenone, and as a quencher of singlet oxygen, was compared with the reactivities of other antioxidants (alpha-tocopherol, palmitoyl ascorbic acid, dihydrolipoic acid and N-acetyl cysteine). In quenching of the triplet states the reactivity of probucol was comparable with that of alpha-tocopherol, whereas as a quencher of singlet oxygen probucol (k < 10(6) M-1 s-1) was less effective than alpha-tocopherol (k = 2.0 x 10(8) M-1 s-1) by more than two orders of magnitude. This difference in reactivity may allow the contribution of singlet oxygen towards oxidative stress to be quantified separately.