Quantification analysis of progesterone based on terahertz spectroscopy

Progesterone is a natural progestational hormone secreted by the corpus luteum and placenta that protects the growth of the fetus in the early stage. It is also applied to the study on the treatment of human central nervous system diseases, which proved to have high clinical medicinal value. The present detection methods of progesterone concentration, such as high-performance liquid chromatography and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, have the disadvantages of high consumption, cumbersome procedures, and expensive equipment. Here, the terahertz spectroscopy is applied to detect the medicinal concentration of progesterone. First, the characteristic peaks of progesterone are 1.24, 1.64, and 2.12 THz, determined by the density functional theory calculation and experimental collection of terahertz spectra. Then, the peak height and peak area of the above characteristic peaks are used to establish a linear correlation model with the concentration of progesterone injection, and the coefficient of determination ( R2 ), in this model, is greater than 0.95. Meanwhile, we adopt Raman spectroscopy technology and got the R2 of 0.71, which is not so good as terahertz spectroscopy. Furthermore, multivariate curve resolution-alternating least square is used to analyze the composition of progesterone in progesterone capsules. The result shows that the error rate between the predicted concentration of progesterone and the real one is less than 5%. Therefore, terahertz spectroscopy provides a new way for the detection of progesterone drug content.