Isoprostane is a biomarker indicative of oxidative stress in the human body. This project seeks to develop a method to quantify the presence of isoprostane in waste water to work towards a means to measure the overall health of the community serviced by water reclamation facilities. The process of monitoring sewage, referred to as “sewage chemical-information mining” (SCIM) is applied to the monitoring of biomarkers, a process referred to as BioSCIM. This project seeks to discover methods that are simple and inexpensive to implement, and thus practical for community epidemiology as a supplement to a conventional survey-based census approach, which requires much more time and are more expensive to implement. Immunoassays were chosen, as they have been shown to meet these criteria. Isoprostane is an important biomarker that is correlated strongly to oxidative stress, a type of systematic stress that is a result of excess free radicals in the body. The presence of isoprostane in human waste has been correlated to various diseases, including cancer, alcohol use, and depression. Levels of this biomarker in waste water provide a method to quantify the amount of oxidative stress experienced by the population creating the waste. Samples in this project were prepared using C18 SPE columns. Both free and total isoprostane was measured using two immunoassays requiring differing methods of preparation. An immunoassay kit from Cayman was chosen due to its low detection level of 3pg/ml and range of 0.8-500 pg/ml. The kit is very sensitive and requires SPE cleanup. An Oxford immunoassay kit was used despite the approximately 0.1-5 ng/ml detection level, as it required no cleanup of the sample aside from dilution. Samples from multiple facilities and at several different points in the process were analyzed. Eventually, samples from the influent and effluent as intermediary points were redundant.<br/>

Immunoassay methods to detect isoprostane: A biomarker of oxidative stress in waste water

256th National Meeting (2018)

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