1990 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 30-35_1
As chlorophylls are unstable, they readily produce many kinds of decomposition products, some of which cause the oxidative deterioration of edible oil.
We reported previously a rapid determination of hydrocarbons in edible oil as an index of lipid peroxidation. By using this method, the amount of hydrocarbons formed from cell membrane was measured, and its correlation with cell damage was studied.
C3H mouse skin fibroblastic cell line L929 was considered to be the most suitable to estimate prooxidant activity among the cells (rabbit erythrocytes, primary cultured rat hepatocytes and mouse BALB 3T3 cells), because cell damage occurred in the cell suspension without spiking the chlorophyll-related compounds.
When the cell suspension containing pyropheophorbide a or pheophorbide a was exposed to light, lipids of the cell membrane were markedly peroxidized and decomposed. However, other chlorophyll-related compounds (pheophytins and chlorophylls) were not damaging. Pyropheophorbide a produced the highest hydrocarbon formation, followed by pheophorbide a. Pheophytins and chlorophylls both produced small amounts of hydrocarbons, but pheophytins produced slightly more than chlorophylls.
In C3H mouse skin fibroblastic cell line L929, there was a good correlation between the amount of pentane formed by decomposition of peroxides and cell damage (r=0.9587).
