We have performed in vivo measurements of near-infrared rat skin absorption in the 4000-5000-cm(-1) spectral range (2.0-2.5-microm wavelength) during a glucose clamp experiment in order to identify the presence of glucose-specific spectral information. Spectra were collected during an initial 3-h period where the animal's blood glucose concentration was held at its normal value. The blood glucose level was then increased above 30 mM by venous infusion of glucose and held for 2 h, after which it was allowed to return to normal. Spectra were recorded continuously during the procedure and are analyzed to identify spectral changes associated with changes in glucose concentration. Because the change in absorbance due to an increase in glucose concentration is small compared to changes due to other variations (e.g., the thickness of the skin sample), a simple subtraction of absorbance spectra from the hyperglycemic and euglycemic phases is not instructive. Instead, a set of principal components is established from the euglycemic period where the glucose concentration is constant. We then examine the change in absorbance during the hyperglycemic period that is orthogonal to these principal components. We find that there are significant similarities between these orthogonal variations and the net analyte signal of glucose, which suggests that glucose spectral information is present. The analysis described here provides a procedure by which the analytical significance of a multivariate calibration can be evaluated.