Development of a liquid phase radioimmunoassay for the measurement of serum ferritin levels for the detection of Covid-19 in patients

Emil Michael Riad,Nagy Lahzy Mehany,Nahed Hassan Ebeid,Ahmed Sami El-Bayoumy,Shadia Abdel-Hamid Fathy,Khaled Mohamed Sallam,Manal Asem Emam

doi:10.1007/s10967-022-08208-1

Abstract

The aim of this study was the development and analytically validation of a radioimmunoassay system for the measurement of the serum ferritin concentration as one of the laboratory biomarkers for infection by Covid-19. The main components of the system were prepared in our laboratories. The first component ferritin was extracted and purified from human spleen with high purity. The second component was the 125I-labelled ferritin tracer, prepared using Chloramine-T method. Furthermore anti-ferritin antibodies and ferritin standards were provided. The developed system is sensitive, precise, reproducible and.can be translated into a kit formulation suitable for measuring serum ferritin for the detection of Covid-19 in patients at low costs and high efficiency.

Highlights

COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease-2019) is an emerging infectious disease that has been stated as a worldwide public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO)
Patients with COVID-19 show hyperinflammation and concomitant biomarkers which consist of elevated serum ferritin, C—reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), D-dimer and this may be helpful for risk stratification. [3–6]
Ferritin extraction and purification was considered the backbone for the prepared system because it produces the main component which used for preparation of ferritin tracer, ferritin standard and used to produce the ferritin polyclonal antibodies

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease-2019) is an emerging infectious disease that has been stated as a worldwide public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). COVID-19 has a mild influenza-like infection or may be asymptomatic, a small percentage of patients progress acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), severe pneumonia, multi-organ failure, and can even die [2]. Patients with COVID-19 show hyperinflammation and concomitant biomarkers which consist of elevated serum ferritin, C—reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), D-dimer and this may be helpful for risk stratification. The amount of iron stored in the body correlates with serum ferritin levels in both healthy and sick people. Because of its relatively high stability and solubility, as well as its direct proportionality to body iron stores in normal persons, serum ferritin is the most commonly used indicator of total body iron storage [7, 8]

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Methods

Results