Rapid automated determination of lipid hydroperoxide concentrations and total antioxidant status of serum samples from patients infected with HIV: elevated lipid hydroperoxide concentrations and depleted total antioxidant capacity of serum samples.

Excessive production of oxygen free radicals causes the oxidation of circulating or membrane lipids, proteins, and DNA. Patients infected with HIV usually have severe malnutrition in the AIDS stage of disease. Therefore, they may be at higher risk of oxidative stress. We measured lipid hydroperoxide concentration, antioxidant status, cholesterol, triglyceride, iron, ceruloplasmin, and transferrin concentrations in the serum samples of 14 patients infected with HIV and compared our results with the results from 14 volunteers who served as controls. Lipid hydroperoxide concentrations in serum samples were measured by a colorimetric assay in which hemoglobin catalyzes the reaction of lipid hydroperoxide with a methylene blue derivative, yielding methylene blue. The total antioxidant capacity of serum was measured by the ability of serum to inhibit the formation of ferrylmyoglobin by metmyoglobin and hydrogen peroxide. Both assays were automated on the Syva-30R analyzer (Behring, San Francisco, Calif). We measured serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations by using the Vitro 950 analyzer (Johnson & Johnson, Rochester, NY). The lipid hydroperoxide concentrations were significantly elevated (mean, 1.44; SD, 0.95 micromol/L) in patients with HIV compared with control subjects (mean, 0.25; SD, 0.24 micromol/L). In contrast, the total antioxidant capacity was significantly lower in patients with HIV (mean, 1.04; SD, 0.13 mmol/L of trolox equivalent) compared with control subjects (mean, 1.66; SD, 0.09 mmol/L). We observed a fair correlation between serum lipid hydroperoxide concentrations and serum triglyceride concentrations in patients with AIDS. The correlation between serum hydroperoxide concentration and antioxidant status of serum was relatively poor. The lipid hydroperoxide assay was linear, from 0.1 micromol/L to 50 micromol/L. The within-run and between-run coefficients of variation were 3.5% and 4.5%, respectively, at a lipid hydroperoxide concentration of 2.5 micromol/L. The total antioxidant capacity assay was linear, from 0.1 to 2.5 mmol/L of trolox equivalent. The within-run and between-run coefficients of variation were 1.4% and 4.2% for the standard, with a target total antioxidant capacity of 1.5 mmol/L of trolox equivalent. We conclude that our automated assays for determination of total antioxidant status of serum and lipid hydroperoxide products may be helpful screening tests followed by measuring individual antioxidants, such as tocopherol, ascorbic acid, and other antioxidants for patients with severe deficiency of antioxidant status.