ABSTRACT
Lipid peroxidation is probably the most studied oxidative process in biological systems. At
present, Medline cites about 30,000 publications on lipid peroxidation, but the total number
of studies must be much more because Medline does not include publications before 1970.
Most of the earlier studies are in vitro studies, in which lipid peroxidation is carried out in
lipid suspensions, cellular organelles (mitochondria and microsomes), or cells and initiated by
simple chemical free radical-produced systems (the Fenton reaction, ferrous ionsþ ascorbate, carbon tetrachloride, etc). In these in vitro experiments reaction products (mainly, malon-
dialdehyde (MDA), lipid hydroperoxides, and diene conjugates) were analyzed by physico-
chemical methods (optical spectroscopy and later on, HPLC and EPR spectroscopies). These
studies gave the important information concerning the mechanism of lipid peroxidation, the
structures of reaction products, etc.
