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Updated: May 25, 2026
Chemiluminescence-based Assays for Detection of Nitric Oxide and its Derivatives from Autoxidation and Nitrosated Compounds
Published on: February 16, 2022
Sensitive Quantification of the Ethylene Oxide Hemoglobin Adduct N-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-l-valine from Minimal Blood
Chih-Wei Liu1, Jiahao Feng1, Jingya Peng1
1Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States.
Abstract:
Ethylene oxide (EtO) assessment relies on detecting the hemoglobin adduct N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-l-valine (HE-V). However, current methods require large blood volumes, limiting small-animal exposure studies and reliable detection of endogenous background levels of HE-V. We optimized a highly sensitive analytical workflow including hemoglobin extraction from microliter-scale blood samples, HE-V purification, and targeted LC-MS/MS quantitative analysis. This workflow reliably quantifies endogenous HE-V levels of unexposed mice from only 50 μg of purified hemoglobin (10 μL of blood) and is demonstrated to detect significant HE-V increases at EtO exposures as low as 0.05 ppm. Our platform enables practical EtO biomonitoring in volume-constrained experimental and environmental settings.
