Abstract
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Oxidative
stress is implicated in many diseases yet no simple,
rapid, and robust measurement is available at the point-of-care to
assist clinicians in detecting oxidative stress. Here, we report results
from a discovery-based research approach in which a redox mediator
is used to probe serum samples for chemical information relevant to
oxidative stress. Specifically, we use an iridium salt (K2IrCl6) to probe serum for reducing activities that can
transfer electrons to iridium and thus generate detectable optical
and electrochemical signals. We show that this Ir-reducing assay can
detect various biological reductants and is especially sensitive to
glutathione (GSH) compared to alternative assays. We performed an
initial clinical evaluation using serum from 10 people diagnosed with
schizophrenia, a mental health disorder that is increasingly linked
to oxidative stress. The measured Ir-reducing capacity was able to
discriminate people with schizophrenia from healthy controls (p < 0.005), and correlations were observed between Ir-reducing
capacity and independent measures of symptom severity.
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