??2-aminothiazoline-4-carboxylic acid (ATCA) is formed in vivo by the reaction of cyanide (CN) with cystine. ATCA is the second most abundant metabolite of cyanide, and is not known to form in the absence of CN.  These qualities make ATCA a promising quantitative biomarker for the extent of CN induced toxicity in an exposure victim.  We are developing a sensor, based on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), to quickly and selectively quantify biologically relevant amounts of ATCA.  Here we report experiments to estimate a lower bound for the limit of detection for ATCA via SERS.  ATCA was reacted with 2-iminothiolane hydrochloride (2-IT) to introduce a thiol terminated linker to ATCA that would enable it to bind covalently to gold.  The reaction produced a good yield of crystalline precipitate in aqueous solution of pH 7-9 and at temperatures of 60oC for 1hr.  A Raman spectrum of the crystals revealed a reaction product that was distinct from ATCA and 2-IT, but lacked the expected thiol stretch.  The crystals were found to re-dissolve upon heating of the solution. Ongoing experiments to characterize the crystals, and to test for covalent bonding will be reported along with Raman data.

Reaction of ATCA and 2-IT to use ATCA as a biomarker for cyanide intoxication

247th National Meeting (2014)

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