Photometric flow analysis system for biomedical investigations of iron/transferrin speciation in human serum

The Multicommutated Flow Analysis (MCFA) system for the estimation of clinical iron parameters: Serum Iron (SI), Unsaturated Iron Binding Capacity (UIBC) and Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC) has been proposed. The developed MCFA system based on simple photometric detection of iron with chromogenic agent (ferrozine) enables a speciation of transferrin (determination of free and Fe-bound protein) in human serum. The construction of manifold was adapted to the requirements of measurements under changing conditions. In the course of studies, a different effect of proteins on SI and UIBC determination has been proven. That was in turn the reason to perform two kinds of calibration methods. For measurements in acidic medium for SI/holotransferrin determination, the calibration curve method was applied, characterized by limit of determination and limit of quantitation on the level of 3.4 μmol L−1 and 9.1 μmol L−1, respectively. The determination method for UIBC parameter (related to apotransferrin level) in physiological medium of pH 7.4 forced the use of standard addition method due to the strong influence of proteins on obtaining analytical signals. These two different methodologies, performed in the presented system, enabled the estimation of all three clinical iron/transferrin parameters in human serum samples. TIBC corresponding to total transferrin level was calculated as a sum of SI and UIBC.