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

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.

Clinical applications of infrared and Raman spectroscopy: state of play and future challenges

“…Translational work by the group from Monash University, based on the use of ATR -FTIR spectroscopy for the determination of malaria parasitemia in whole blood samples [82], has been recently demonstrated in field trials in austere environments proving the robustness and capability of serum biofluid diagnostics.…”

Potential of Raman spectroscopy for the analysis of plasma/serum in the liquid state: recent advances

“…Multianalyte, dried serum analysis has previously been reported using mid-infrared spectroscopy, for the simultaneous quantitation of eight serum analytes: total protein content, albumin, triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose, urea, creatinine and uric acid [47] and for simultaneous quantification of glucose and urea analytes along with malaria parasitemia quantification using ATR-FTIR [11]. As a direct comparison of the techniques of mid-IR and Raman spectroscopy, together with multivariate data analysis, for the quantitative analysis of serum, Rohleder et al analysed the serum of 247 blood donors [36].…”

“…Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, both Raman and Infrared (IR) absorption, have been extensively explored over the last two decades for obtaining the biochemical composition of bodily fluids in the field of biomedical analysis [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The sensitivity to detect subtle changes in the biochemical composition and ability to detect the presence of specific biomarkers or drugs makes vibrational spectroscopy an ideal tool for the early diagnosis of various pathologies [11][12][13][14] and therapeutic drug monitoring [15][16][17]. Both techniques are truly label free, rapid, cost-effective, easy to operate, non-destructive and provide the unique molecular fingerprint of the sample with minimal sample preparation steps.…”

A Plasma Biochemical Analysis of Acute Lead Poisoning in a Rat Model by Chemometrics-Based Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy: An Exploratory Study

“…In recent years, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been widely used in the biochemical analysis field (Baker et al, 2014 ). FTIR spectroscopy is a simple, convenient, non-destructive, rapid and low-cost detection method to sample biological materials such as blood and tissue for diagnostic purposes (Deleris and Petibois, 2003 ; Ellis and Goodacre, 2006 ; Krafft et al, 2007 , 2009 ; Gasper et al, 2009 ; Gajjar et al, 2013 ; Baker et al, 2014 ; Mitchell et al, 2014 ; Ollesch et al, 2014 ; Sheng et al, 2015 ; Staniszewska-Slezak et al, 2015 ; Depciuch et al, 2017 ; Elmi et al, 2017 ; Ghimire et al, 2017 ; Guo et al, 2017 ; Le Corvec et al, 2017 ; Li et al, 2017 ; Liu et al, 2017 ; Paraskevaidi et al, 2017 ; Roy et al, 2017 ; Sarkar et al, 2017 ; Titus et al, 2017 ; De Bruyne et al, 2018 ; Rai et al, 2018 ). When combined with chemometric analysis, FTIR spectroscopy can be further empowered in disease diagnostics.…”

“…They also envisioned that chemometrics-based FTIR spectroscopy could potentially provide some spectral biomarkers for disease diagnostics (Staniszewska-Slezak et al, 2015 ). Roy et al recently used attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy in combination with partial least squares discriminant analysis and partial least squares regression to identify malaria parasites, blood glucose and urea levels in whole blood samples (Roy et al, 2017 ). Titus et al recently proposed an FTIR approach combined with cluster and heterogeneity analyses to rapidly screen colitis without using biopsies or in vivo measurements (Titus et al, 2017 ).…”