METHOD OF DEFINING ERYTHROCYTE MEMBRANE SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HEAVY METAL EFFECT Russian patent published in 2008 - IPC G01N33/49 

FIELD: medicine.

SUBSTANCE: invention concerns medicine and biology, particularly biophysical methods of blood examination methods, and can be applied in diagnostics of toxic heavy metal effect caused by environmental pollution, and human health assessment, for pregnant women as well. The method involves extraction of 0.02 ml of capillary blood for examination, placing it into cooled mix of 0.5 ml of 0.15 M phosphate poiser with pH=7.4 and 0.5 ml of 0.25% glutaric aldehyde solution at the ratio of 1:1, resuspension by placing the mix to refrigerator at the temperature of 4°C for 60 min for cell form fixation. Then, after the fixation, the test tube content is resuspended again, 0.01 ml of cell suspension is placed onto the object glass, 250 cells are selected, number of discocytes in native preparation is defined, followed by careful stirring of the left cell suspension. 0.08 ml of cooled-down cell suspension is poured into four test tubes: to one test tube 0.02 ml of 0.01% ZnSO₄ solution is added, to another - 0.02 ml of 0.1% MnSO₄, to the third - 0.02 ml of 0.005% NiSO₄ solution, to the fourth - 0.02 ml of 0.01% Pb(NO₃)₂, and all four are incubated at the room temperature of 18-20°C for 30 minutes, After incubation the test tube content is resuspended again, 0.01 ml of cell suspension is placed onto objective glass, 250 cells are selected, number of discocytes and erythrocyte membrane susceptibility are defined by the formula: , where K_mp is the erythrocyte membrane susceptibility index; D_n is the number of discocytes in native smear, %; D_m is the number of discocytes left under the influence of given heavy metals, %; and if K_mp is under 95% of the original level, then the cell membranes are susceptible to the respective heavy metal.

EFFECT: possibility for early pre-clinical diagnostics of pathology related to heavy metal effect.

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