1Introduction Glutathione( GSH) is one of the most important endogenous anti-oxidants found in cells [1].I ti sr esponsible for maintaining the redox state of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells,p reventing cellular damage by oxidative speciess uch as free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS).G SH is at ri-peptidei nt he form Glu-Cys-Gli that takes part in severalc ellular processes such as metabolism, differentiation,d etoxification and apoptosis.G lutathione can be converted to glutathione disulfide( GSSG) throughac hemical reaction with reactive oxidative species in the cellular medium, forming an important defense mechanism against oxidative agents [1][2][3].S tudies show that ac hange in the homeostatic concentration of GSH at the cellular level is af actor that can lead to the development of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases,A lzheimersd isease,d iabetes and cancer [ 1,4,5].Glutathione detection has been performed, mostly,b y high performancel iquid chromatography (HPLC) due to its high sensitivitya nd selectivity [6][7][8].D espite its satisfactory performance,H PLC detection presents some drawbacks such as the need of sample preparation,h igh cost and long analysis time.A na lternative thatc ould potentially overcomes ome of those drawbacksi sthe use of electrochemical techniques.A sg lutathione does not present electrochemical responseover bareelectrode surfaces, all electrochemical methodsf or its detectionr ely on modified electrodesurfaces [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] or the use of mediators [23,24].L owinsohn et al. reported the use of acetaminophen, ar eadily available and well-studied pharmaceutical compound, as am ediator for the electrochemical detection of glutathione in solutions with physiological pH [25].Theu se of electrochemical techniques for glutathione detection eliminates the need for sample preparation, allowing for "in vivo" detection of this tri-peptide.I nt hat sense,m icroelectrodes are ap owerful toolb ecause they can be fabricated with physically small dimensions and at ime and space resolved electrochemical responsei s generated, allowingt he application of this kind of sensor in single cell analysis [26][27][28][29][30].F or instance,t he advantageous features of microelectrodes have been explored in studies involving the excretion of thiodione,a ne lectroactive conjugate formed in the reactionb etween menadione and glutathione,a tt he single cell level by means of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) [31,32].In the presentp aper wei nvestigate the application of ar ing-disc microelectrode for indirect electrochemical sensing of glutathione using acetaminophen as an electroactive probe.T he proposed approachi sap roof of concept for space-resolved glutathione detection that could be potentially useful for scanninge lectrochemical mMicroscopya pplication in single cell analysis.
2Experimental 2.1 ChemicalsAll the solid reagents were of analytical grade and were used without further purification. Phosphate buffer saline (PBS) pellet...