Which hydrogen peroxide? - (Nov/19/2012 )

I just want to do a quick assay to determine timing and level of apoptosis (and ROS defenses) with H2O2 treatment. Is there some reason to use H2O2 purchased from a scientific company like Sigma or Fisher etc... or can I just use regular pharmacy hydrogen peroxide? They also list the concentration and they say it's diluted in only pure water so I imagine it would still be safe to use. I just want to double check as I imagine someone has figured this out before already. Even if the concentration numbers aren't accurate to a million significant digits, they don't need to be exact for this.

Thanks.

You probably could. But why would you?

And one concern I would have is not knowing the QC requirements for a pharmacy product versus a research reagent. For example perhaps significant variation in concentrations are acceptable, and these may have an impact on your assays. Or they may be more lenient when it comes to levels of contaminants. Yes they say "pure water" but do they test this, and how etc etc.