Figure 5.

Antioxidant activity of the non-protein fraction of plasma from test and control animals (a) and of quercetin and isorhamnetin compounds (b), estimated by the 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline sulphonate) (ABTS) assay and expressed as Trolox equivalents. The assays were performed as described in Methods. The slope of the plot of Trolox equivalents, against plasma extract volumes, gives the antioxidant activity per millilitre of the non-protein fraction of plasma. The antioxidant status of the non-protein fraction of plasma from test animals and from control animals was 58±6 and 49±4 nmol of Trolox equiv ml⁻¹ of plasma, respectively. The values shown are means±s.d. from two independent experiments performed in triplicate, and for each experiment pools of six plasma samples from test and control animals were used.