Measurement of Glutathione Reductase Activity

Abstract Reduced glutathione, a thiol, is essential to the survival of the cells of most aerobic organisms. It is present intracellularly and provides protection from hydroperoxides and free radicals. This unit describes a continuous spectrophotometric assay for reductase activity: it follows the reduction of glutathione disulfide to reduced glutathione by monitoring the oxidation of NADPH as visualized by a decrease in absorbance at 340 nm.