Background: A plethora of concurrent cellular activities is mobilised in the adaptation of plants to adverse environmental conditions. This response can be quantified by physiological experiments or metabolic profiling. The intention of this work is to reduce the number of metabolic processes studied to a minimum of relevant parameters with a maximum yield of information. Therefore, we inspected 'summary parameters' characteristic for whole classes of antioxidative metabolites and key enzymes.
Results: Three bioluminescence assays are presented. A horseradish peroxidase-based total antioxidative capacity (TAC) assay is used to probe low molecular weight antioxidants. Peroxidases are quantified by their luminol converting activity (LUPO). Finally, we quantify high molecular weight superoxide anion scavenging activity (SOSA) using coelenterazine.Experiments with Lepidium sativum L. show how salt, drought, cold, and heat influence the antioxidative system represented here by TAC, LUPO, SOSA, catalase, and glutathione reductase (GR). LUPO and SOSA run anti-parallel under all investigated stress conditions suggesting shifts in antioxidative functions rather than formation of antioxidative power. TAC runs in parallel with GR. This indicates that a majority of low molecular weight antioxidants in plants is represented by glutathione.
Conclusion: The set of assays presented here is capable of characterising antioxidative activities in plants. It is inexpensive, quick and reproducible and delivers quantitative data. 'Summary parameters' like TAC, LUPO, and SOSA are quantitative traits which may be promising for implementation in high-throughput screening for robustness of novel mutants, transgenics, or breeds.