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Clinical Chemistry 21: 1783-1787, 1975;
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Clinical Chemistry, Vol 21, 1783-1787, Copyright © 1975 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Fluorometric Determination of dgr-Aminolaevulinate Dehydratase Activity in Human Erythrocytes as an Index to Lead Exposure

Saroj K. Chakrabarti 1, Jules Brodeur 1, and Robert Tardif 1

1 Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.

We describe a fluorometric method for determining dgr-aminolaevulinate dehydratase (EC 4.2.1.24) activity in human erythrocytes and compare it with the existing colorimetric method. Incubation conditions are identical. In the proposed method, the porphobilinogen formed during incubation is converted to a stable and highly fluorescent uroporphyrin by heating for 20 min at 93 °C in an acidic medium in the presence of air. The correlation between results by the two methods was good (r = 0.89). We found a good negative correlation between the activity of the enzyme and the concentration of circulating lead with both methods (r = -0.61 for present method and -0.59 for colorimetric method) for groups of persons subjected to various degrees of lead exposure. Our method is more sensitive and accurate, requires less sample, and the fluorescence is more stable than is the color in the colorimetric method.


Key Words: lead poisoning • screening • toxicology • fluorometry of uroporphyrin • environmental hazards • enzyme activity

Submitted on June 23, 1975
Accepted on August 26, 1975






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Copyright © 1975 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.