Biocatalytically initiated precipitation ATRP as a quantitative method for hemoglobin detection in biological fluids

The hemoglobin content of blood is an important health indicator, and the presence of microscopic amounts of hemoglobin in places where it normally does not occur, e.g. in blood plasma or in urine, is a sign of diseases such as hemolytic anemia or urinary tract infections. Thus, methods to detect and quantify hemoglobin are important for clinical laboratories, blood banks, and for point-of-care diagnostics. The precipitation polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide by hemoglobin-catalyzed atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) is used as an assay for hemoglobin quantification relying on the formation of turbidity as a simple optical readout. Dose-response curves for pure hemoglobin, for hemoglobin in blood plasma, in urine, in erythrocytes, and in full blood are obtained. Turbidity formation increases with the concentration of hemoglobin. Concentrations of hemoglobin as low as low as 6.45∙10-3 mg mL-1 in solution, 4.88∙10-1 mg mL-1 in plasma, and 1.65∙10-1 mg mL-1 in urine could be detected, which is ...