Simultaneous ATR-FTIR Based Determination of Malaria Parasitemia, Glucose and Urea in Whole Blood Dried onto a Glass Slide

Anal Chem. 2017 May 16;89(10):5238-5245. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.6b04578. Epub 2017 Apr 28.

Abstract

New diagnostic tools that can detect malaria parasites in conjunction with other diagnostic parameters are urgently required. In this study, Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy in combination with Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and Partial Least Square Regression (PLS-R) have been applied as a point-of-care test for identifying malaria parasites, blood glucose, and urea levels in whole blood samples from thick blood films on glass slides. The specificity for the PLS-DA was found to be 98% for parasitemia levels >0.5%, but a rather low sensitivity of 70% was achieved because of the small number of negative samples in the model. In PLS-R the Root Mean Square Error of Cross Validation (RMSECV) for parasite concentration (0-5%) was 0.58%. Similarly, for glucose (0-400 mg/dL) and urea (0-250 mg/dL) spiked samples, relative RMSECVs were 16% and 17%, respectively. The method reported here is the first example of multianalyte/disease diagnosis using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, which in this case, enabled the simultaneous quantification of glucose and urea analytes along with malaria parasitemia quantification using one spectrum obtained from a single drop of blood on a glass microscope slide.

MeSH terms

  • Area Under Curve
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Dried Blood Spot Testing
  • Glass / chemistry
  • Glucose / chemistry*
  • Humans
  • Least-Squares Analysis
  • Malaria / diagnosis*
  • Plasmodium / chemistry
  • Plasmodium / cytology*
  • ROC Curve
  • Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared / methods*
  • Urea / chemistry*

Substances

  • Urea
  • Glucose