Serum albumin analysis for type II diabetes detection using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy combined with membrane electrophoresis (ME) was firstly employed to detect albumin variation in type II diabetic development. Albumin was first purified from human serum by ME and then mixed with silver nanoparticles to perform SERS spectral analysis. SERS spectra were obtained from blood albumin samples of 20 diabetic patients and 19 healthy volunteers. Subtle but discernible changes in the acquired mean spectra of the two groups were observed. Tentative assignment of albumin SERS bands indicated specific structural changes of albumin molecule with diabetic development. Meanwhile, PCA-LDA diagnostic algorithms were employed to classify the two kinds of albumin SERS spectra, yielding the diagnostic sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 94.7%. The results from this exploratory study demonstrated that the EM-SERS method in combination with multivariate statistical analysis has great potential for the label-free detection of albumin variation for improving type II diabetes screening.