Literature Seminar

The successful management of Diabetes Mellitus depends on the assessment of long-term blood glucose concentrations. Time dependent fluctuations of blood glucose make it an impractical clinical marker for disease management. The glycated hemoglobin, HbA1c, is the standard clinical marker for diabetes monitoring. Current methodologies for assessing HbA1c content are susceptible to interpatient variability in mean red blood cell (RBC) lifetimes. In order to mitigate the effects of time dependent factors on diabetes monitoring, researchers develop a mathematical model for the distribution of HbA1c across individual RBCs in a sample1. Experimental histograms are generated using transient absorption microscopy to detect HbA1c content at the single RBC level. By fitting the model to experimental data, long-term average blood glucose concentrations are derived independently of the variability of RBC age or short-term glucose levels. The results of their methodology are compared to a previously determined model2, and potential sources of error are examined in this talk.

1.) Dong, Pu-Ting, et al. “Label-Free Quantitation of Glycated Hemoglobin in Single Red Blood Cells by Transient Absorption Microscopy and Phasor Analysis.” Science Advances, vol. 5, no. 5, 10 May 2019.
2.) D. M. Nathan, H. Turgeon, S. Regan, Relationship between glycated hemoglobin levels
and mean glucose levels over time. Diabetologia 50, (2007).