Allen Barry W, Liu Jie, Piantadosi Claude A
Department of Anesthesiology and Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
Methods Enzymol. 2005;396:68-77. doi: 10.1016/S0076-6879(05)96007-2.
The challenges that must be overcome in order to detect nitric oxide (NO) in biological fluids include its low physiological concentration (1-nM) and its short half-life (a few seconds or less). Electrochemistry is capable of making such measurements, if certain principles, both biological and electrochemical, are kept in mind. We discuss these principles and demonstrate an example of practical measurement by detecting NO release in a drop of blood suspended within the reference electrode of an electrochemical cell. We elicit the NO release by decreasing the oxygen concentration in the gaseous atmosphere surrounding the drop.
