Abstract:
Diabetes is a disease characterized by hyperglycaemia because of insufficient or
nonproduction of insulin from the pancreas. Establishing prediabetic and dia-
betic condition often involves monitoring levels of glucose and some amino
acids in blood using nonrapid and label‐dependent methods. This work reports
on a method with a potential of being used for quick label‐free detection of dia-
betes mellitus type II based on Raman spectroscopy of blood applied onto a con-
ductive silver‐smeared glass slide. We show that Raman spectral profile from
blood of streptozotocin‐induced diabetic Sprague Dawley rats emanates from
overlap of signals from valine, leucine, isoleucine, creatine, glucose, and fruc-
tose. The Raman spectral bands associated with these biomolecules have the
potential of being used in prediabetic detection and diabetes prediction. Charac-
teristic intense peaks in diabetic rat's blood spectra were centred at wave num-
bers 537 cm−1 associated with valine's CO2− rocking vibration, 829 cm−1
assigned to CH2 rocking vibration in leucine and 917–960 cm−1 ascribed to C–
C and C–N stretching and CH3 rocking vibrations in various biomolecules.
The average intensities of these bands were sensitive to antidiabetic drug admin-
istration on the rats as their values approached those of nondiabetic rats and so
could be used as diabetes biomarker bands. Statistical analyses together with
evaluation of average intensities of these biomarker bands showed that the
herbal extract Rotheca myricoides Hochst had greater antidiabetic effect at low
dose (50 mg/kg of body weight) than at high dose (100 mg/kg of body weight).
A similar result was seen with area under curve values and could act as an addi-
tional parameter in diabetes detection and prediction.
