Clinical Chemistry, Vol 39, 1432-1434, Copyright © 1993 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Electrochemical homogeneous enzyme immunoassay of theophylline in hemolyzed, icteric, and lipemic samples

H Yao, SH Jenkins, AJ Pesce, HB Halsall and WR Heineman
Biomedical Chemistry Research Center, University of Cincinnati, OH 45221-0172.

We demonstrate here an electrochemical homogeneous enzyme immunoassay for theophylline, which can be performed in hemolyzed, lipemic, and icteric samples. The assay used an unmodified Syva EMIT theophylline kit. One of the enzymatic reaction products, NADH, reacted with 2,6- dichloroindophenol (DCIP) to reduce DCIP to DCIPH2, which was detected electrochemically with flow-injection analysis. The inter- and intraassay coefficients of variation of this manual technique were < 9% at theophylline concentrations of 14 to 34 mg/L. The CVs were 9-15% at low concentrations (6.3 mg/L), which is below the therapeutic range. Analytical recoveries were 91-97% for normal serum and 92-111% for hemolyzed, icteric, or lipemic sera. The measured concentrations (y) were compared with those obtained by the fluorescence polarization immunoassay (x); a scatter plot of the results showed a linear relationship of y = 1.00 x - 0.57 mg/L (r = 0.966, Sy/x = 1.51). This alternative way to measure the serum concentration of theophylline overcomes the shortcomings of spectrophotometric methods, by which it is difficult to measure theophylline in severely hemolyzed, icteric, or lipemic sera.