A remote-controlled immunochemical system for nephelometric detection of human serum transferrin

The fully-mechanized Multicommutated Flow Analysis (MCFA) system for determination of transferrin in human serum has been developed. The analytical methodology concerns immunoprecipitation measurements with the use of LED-based nephelometric flow-through detectors with polymeric light guides. To improve the mechanization degree of the MCFA system, the Do-It-Yourself electronic module for mobile phone control has been developed. The design and structure of an Android software (build using open source application) controlling the operation of presented flow system has been presented. To bypass the problem of nonlinearity of calibration curve caused by the nature of antigen-antibody interactions, the on-line dilution module has been integrated into the presented manifold. Under optimized conditions, the developed flow analysis system is characterized by relatively low limit of detection and quantitation (2.0 and 4.9 mg L^-1, respectively), good precision (RSD < 4%), low reagent and sample consumption per one measurement (16 µL of undiluted reagent and 20 µL of undiluted sample without further on-line dilution, respectively) and relatively high throughput (approximately 35 signal recordings per hour). The developed MCFA system enabled to analyze 16 serum samples with the transferrin concentration from 90 to almost 350 mg dL^-1 with statistical agreement to the reference method.