DIlute a blood sample

[mkbh_10]

I am basically from physics side and a part of my research work is related to blood. I need to make a solution with blood as a solute in it. What can I use as a solvent ? I do not want to clot blood. Can I use EDTA or Saline ?I will vary the volume of the blood and do my measurements. Which will be better . I need to do absorption study of the sample so I don;t want any interference from the solvent.

[sam1123]

You'll want to use something that is isotonic, and won't lyse any cells. If you are using whole blood and you get lysed red cells, they release porphyrin rings in the form of haem, and they would invalidate your results as they are quite light sensitive.

 

It depends on whether you are using whole blood, plasma, or serum; and what you need the sample for. As you are from the physics side, I'm guessing you may be doing something to do with light absorbance/transmission? Sodium chloride isotonic saline is usually a good thing to use in a dilution, it shouldn't affect your result too much, the concentration of solutes is pretty low. As far as I know EDTA doesn't affect absorbance, if you like at things like structure and molecular weight it might give you an idea. When we use whole blood samples for the ESR/Erythrocyte sedimentation rate test we use sodium citrate, that might be a good one to look into, as it's designed to have minimal effect on light absorbance/transmission.

[iRNAblogger]

Another possibility as your solvent is phosphate-buffered saline, which is easily accessibly and widely used when working with tissues in vitro. I don't THINK it would cause any interference, but my physics knowledge is limited...