• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.190-196
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• 2012

The human exposure of lead has usually detected the amount of lead in the whole blood, however, this method has a shortcoming to give the information on the short-term exposure to lead. In that sense, it is desirable to estimates the level of lead in plasma to draw the chronic bio-marker of lead exposure even though it is difficult to measure lead of several ng/L. An inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) method was developed for determining lead in plasma as the chronic bio-marker of lead of workers. To minimize the contamination of lead from the environment, we constructed class 1,000 clean room and compared the amount of floating dust before and after the operation of the clean room. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) of lead in fetal bovine serum were 4.3 ng/L and 12.2 ng/L by NIOSH method (statistical calculation method) and 7.0 ng/L and 22.1 ng/L by signal/noise ratio, respectively. The accuracy was in a range of 92.3-101.3%, and the precision of the assay was less than 4% in the samples spiked in the concentration of 20 ng/L and 2,000 ng/L. The method was simple, reproducible and sensitive enough to permit reliable analysis of lead to the ng/L level in plasma and/or serum. The method was also useful for the biological monitoring of chronic exposure to lead.

• BMB Reports
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.209-216
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• 2015

Stress is now recognized as a universal premorbid factor associated with many risk factors of various chronic diseases. Acute stress may induce an individual's adaptive response to environmental demands. However, chronic, excessive stress causes cumulative negative impacts on health outcomes through "allostatic load". Thus, monitoring the quantified levels of long-term stress mediators would provide a timely opportunity for prevention or earlier intervention of stressrelated chronic illnesses. Although either acute or chronic stress could be quantified through measurement of changes in physiological parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of various metabolic hormones, it is still elusive to interpret whether the changes in circulating levels of stress mediators such as cortisol can reflect the acute, chronic, or diurnal variations. Both serum and salivary cortisol levels reveal acute changes at a single point in time, but the overall long-term systemic cortisol exposure is difficult to evaluate due to circadian variations and its protein-binding capacity. Scalp hair has a fairy predictable growth rate of approximately 1 cm/month, and the most 1 cm segment approximates the last month's cortisol production as the mean value. The analysis of cortisol in hair is a highly promising technique for the retrospective assessment of chronic stress. [BMB Reports 2015; 48(4): 209-216]

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.4.1-4.4
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• 2012

Background: Serum concentration of cystatin C, a marker of glomerular filtration has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). The aim of this study was to evaluate cystatin C as a marker of obese patients without chronic kidney disease (CKD). Materials and Methods: The study population consisted of 36 subjects with metabolic syndrome and 32 subjects free of metabolic syndrome (the control group). HDL-C, LDL-C, blood urea, triglycerides, glucose, HbA1c, serum cystatin C and serum creatinine were measured in both groups. GFR was calculated in both groups using Cockroft-Gault equation. Results: Obese patients showed higher cystatin C levels than normal samples ($1.28{\pm}0.29$, P < 0.05). In the binary logistic regression, obese patients were significantly associated with elevated cystatin C levels. Conclusion: Our results suggest that cystatin C may be a marker for obese patients and may identify a certain degree of renal dysfunction even when serum creatinine does not exceed the normal level. In this study, we demonstrated that serum creatinineand GFR did not differ significantly between the diabetic and the control groups. Serum concentration of cystatin C was significantly higher in the diabetic group compared with the control group. The strengths of this study are the evaluation of reliability and sensivity in comparison with a 'routine test of GFR'. The methodology used allows an appropriate statistical comparison of reliability in contrast to most other previous evaluations of GFR.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.298-309
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• 2021

Rheumatoid arthritis refers to acute and chronic arthritis due to unexplained autoantibody attack. Rheumatoid arthritis should be accompanied by difficulty in mobility and severe distress due to the progression of systemic arthritis. Therefore, this study early diagnoses the effects of Rheumatoid factor (RF), C-reactive protein (CRP), and Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (Anti-CCP), which are typical serum markers for rheumatoid arthritis by meta-analysis. Pubmed and EMBASE, were used as PICO criteria, and two independent researchers selected papers according to the criteria set in this study. The selection criteria was a study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who developed early onset, and the paper was evaluated using the NCS. Forest plot and Funnel plot graphs for each serum marker were calculated using Revman 5.4. After finding 193 papers on Pubmed and 184 papers on EMBASE and selecting according to the criteria, a total of 41 papers were used for the analysis. The magnitude of the effect that appears in the Forest plot of RF with the Mean differnce value is 134.34, CRP is 21.42 and Anti-CCP is 270.41. The magnitude of the effect of Anti-CCP in meta-analysis was analyzed to be larger than that of RF and CRP, and it is considered that the development of early-diagnosis serum markers using Anti-CCP and additional retrospective studies are highly effective. The combination of RF, CRP, and Anti-CCP as a panel marker is expected to be very efficient.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2020

Alcohol, which can easily be obtained in the same way as ordinary beverages, is harmful enough to cause death due to excessive drinking and chronic alcohol intake, so it is important to maintain a proper amount of drinking and healthy drinking habits. In addition, the incidence of behavioral disturbances and impaired judgments that can be caused by chronic alcohol drinking of more than adequate amounts of alcohol is also significant. Accordingly it is very useful for forensic science to check whether the person involved is drunken or is alcoholism state in various accidents. Currently, in Korea, alcohol consumption is determined by detecting the level of alcohol or alcohol metabolism 'ethyl glucuronide (EtG)' in blood or urine samples. However, analysis of alcohol or EtG in blood or urine can only provide information about the current state of alcohol consumption because of a narrow window of detection time. Therefore, it is important to analyze the EtG as a long-term direct alcohol metabolite bio-marker in human hair and to investigate relationship between alcohol consumption and EtG concentration for the evaluation of chronic ethanol consumption. In this study, we established an analytical method for the detection of EtG in Korean hair efficiently and validated selectivity, linearity, limits of detection (LOD), limits of quantification (LOQ), matrix effect, recovery, process efficiency, accuracy and precision using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). In addition, the assay performance was evaluated in Korean social drinker's hair and the postmortem hair of a chronic alcoholism. The results of this study can be useful in monitoring the alcohol abuse of Korean in clinical cases and legal procedures related to custody and provide a useful tool to evaluate postmortem diagnosis of alcoholic ketoacidosis in forensics.