Study of ABO blood types by combining membrane electrophoresis with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

The molecular characterization of ABO blood types, which is clinically significant in blood transfusion, has clinical and anthropological importance. Polymerase chain reaction sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) is one of the most commonly used methods for the analysis of genetic bases of ABO blood types. However, such methods as PCR-SBT are time-consuming and are high in demand of equipments and manipulative skill. Here we showed that membrane electrophoresis based SERS method employed for studying the molecular bases of ABO blood types can provide rapidand easy-operation with high sensitivity and specificity. The plasma proteins were firstly purified by membrane electrophoresis and then mixed with silver nanoparticles to perform SERS detection. We use this method to classify different blood types, including blood type A (n=13), blood type B (n=9) and blood type O (n=10). Combination of principal component analysis (PCA) and liner discriminant analysis (LDA) was then performed on the SERS spectra of purified albumin, showing good classification results among different blood types. Our experimental outcomes represent a critical step towards the rapid, convenient and accurate identification of ABO blood types.