Near-infrared absorbance measurements of hemoglobin solutions incubated with glucose

Abstract

It is known that glucose influences on spectral properties of blood and hemoglobin and interacts with plasma proteins and hemoglobin in erythrocytes. Changes of optical properties of blood and hemoglobin at glucose concentration within physiological level are important for diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of presence of glucose and glycation of hemoglobin on absorbance of aqueous hemoglobin solutions with different glucose concentrations. Measurements were taken using spectrophotometer EQUINOX 55 (Bruker Optic GmbH) in a range 1000-1800 nm.Water has absorption bands in the near-infrared region which may be influenced by glucose presence. We have hypothesized that glucose and hemoglobin, especially glycated hemoglobin, may influence the absorption band of water in solution. The hemoglobin solutions with different amount of glucose (from 0 to 1000 mg/dl with a step 100 mg/dl) were incubated up to 28 days. Our measurements show that presence of glucose affects the spectra of aqueous hemoglobin solutions. The magnitude of absorbance depends on glucose concentration. At the beginning of incubation hemoglobin solution without glucose has the lowest absorbance magnitude, but after a rather long time of incubation (28 days) the absorbance of hemoglobin solutions with glucose become smaller compared to the absorbance of hemoglobin solution without glucose. This fact may be explained by assumption of hemoglobin glycation, when glucose molecules chemically bind to hemoglobin, and water binding to hemoglobin. In the case of water binding to hemoglobin molecules the amount of free water molecules in solution decreases, so the water aborbance is excepted to decrease.