Determination of Riboflavin in Human Plasma by Excitation-Emission Matrix Fluorescence and Multi-Way Analysis

Abstract

Direct determination of riboflavin (Fig. 1), a vitamin, in human plasma was accomplished based on excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence measurements and multi-way chemometrics method based on parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). The PARAFAC trilinear model, without restrictions and using one factor was used in the data analysis. The excitation wavelength range was from 380 to 460 nm and the emission was recorded from 480 to 600 nm. The calibration set was constructed with sixteen standard solutions in a concentration range of 0.02–0.38 μg mL−1 for riboflavin. The capabilities of the method for the analysis were evaluated by determination of riboflavin in synthetic and real samples with satisfactory results. The accuracy of the methods, evaluated through the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), was 0.0059 for riboflavin by the PARAFAC model. Also, partial least squares (PLS) model was built at one excitation wavelength and used to determine a set of synthetic and real samples. The best model was obtained with PARAFAC. This result shows that molecular fluorescence spectroscopy can be used for the development of robust analytical methods for the direct determination of riboflavin in complex backgrounds such as human plasma.