Table 1.

Trypanothione and glutathione are the major, low MW thiols utilized by T. cruzi to keep redox homeostasis.

	Glutathione	Trypanothione
A. Chemical structure Oxidized state:		Número de envío [A
Reduced state:		3552373]
B. Enzymes involved	GshA and GshB	TryS
C. Substrates	ATP L-Glutamate L-Cysteine L-Glycine	ATP Spermidine GSH (*possibly synthesized by parasite)
D. Reduction coefficient (Fairlamb and Cerami, 1992)	Eo = −0.230	Eo = −0.242 V
E. pKa (Moutiez et al., 1994)	8.7	7.4
F. Concentration	1 mM in blood (Richie et al., 1996). 6.9 mM in intracellular milieu of HeLa cells (Montero et al., 2013)	0.12–0.64 nmol/108 epimastigotes; 0.25–0.95 nmol/108 bloodstream trypomastigotes; 0.12 nmol/108 amastigotes (Ariyanayagam and Fairlamb, 2001; Ariyanayagam et al., 2003)

Glutathione (ubiquitous monothiol among eukaryotes) and trypanothione (a kinetoplastid-specific dithiol) are synthesized by parasites' antioxidant machinery, and these molecules play a key role in distribution of reducing equivalents along the antioxidant network. Even when they have similar characteristics, T[SH]₂ is considered a kinetically superior antioxidant.