title: Adaptation of the Griess reaction for detection of nitrite in human plasma.
abstract: The determination of nitrite in human plasma or serum has been most frequently used as a marker of nitric oxide (NO) production. In addition, it has recently been suggested that nitrite could act as a vasodilating agent at physiological concentrations by NO delivery. Therefore, nitrite determination in biological fluids is becoming increasingly important. The most frequently used method to measure nitrite is based on the spectrophotometric analysis of the azo dye obtained after reaction with the Griess reagent. This method has some limitations regarding detection limit and sensitivity, thus resulting unsuitable for nitrite detection in plasma. We have identified some drawbacks and modified the original procedure to overcome these problems. By the use of the newly developed method, we measured 221+/-72 nM nitrite in human plasma from healthy donors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Pharmacology Unit, University of Siena, Via A. Moro 4, 53100, Siena, Italy. giustarini@unisi.it
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Giustarini
authors.forename: Isabella
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dalle-Donne
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Colombo
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Milzani
authors.forename: Ranieri
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rossi
mesh_terms: D006262:Health; D006801:Humans; D009573:Nitrites / Q000097:blood*; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D009573:Nitrites