Abstract

Studies on the photostability of linoleic acid in aqueous buffered aerobic environment have been carried out. The focus of this work was to gather information regarding the lipoperoxidation of linoleic acid, photoinduced by riboflavin in the presence or absence of ?-carotene and buthylhydroxytoluene (BHT). Lipoperoxidation was followed by measuring the production of reactive species to the thiobarbituric test and expressed as malondialdehyde. The results obtained have confirmed that riboflavin performs as sensitizer favoring lipoperoxidation of linoleic acid. Besides, it has been found that riboflavin sensitizing activity is improved when ?-carotene is present. On the other hand, BHT turned out to be an efficient antioxidant towards linoleic acid, under the conditions of induced lipoperoxidation used in this work.