Electrochemical Behavior of a Mitochondria-Targeted Antioxidant at an Interface between Two Immiscible Electrolyte Solutions: An Alternative Approach to Study Lipophilicity.

In this work, we report for the first time the accumulation activity by energized rat heart mitochondria and the ionic transfer process at a liquid-liquid interface of a novel mitochondria-targeted antioxidant, named as AntiOxCIN4, which is structurally based on a hydroxycinnamic acid. Lipophilicity studies conducted at the water/1,6-dichlorohexane (DCH) interface allowed the building up of an ionic partition diagram of AntiOxCIN4 in accordance with the electrochemical data obtained. The partition coefficients of both positively charged (-2.3) and zwitterionic (0.2) forms of the antioxidant were determined. This study contributed to gaining an insight about the ability of the synthesized antioxidants to cross biomembrane barriers by using an interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) as a model system.