X. Zhang, et al. (2002) reported that DAF-2 reacted with dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) and ascorbic acid (AA) to generate fluorescent compounds. While this is true, DAF-2 exhibits a higher sensitivity to NO than to DHA and AA. However, DAF-2 may react with higher concentrations of DHA, AA or aldehydes to generate fluorescent compounds when their concentration is high or the reaction time is long. Therefore in biological systems, X. Zhang, et al. suggests performing control experiments using NOS inhibitors to confirm if the increased fluorescence is directly due to NO or is an artifact of DHA, AA or aldehyde interactions.
Zhang, X. et al. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 48472-48478 (2002)