Analysis of biomarkers characteristic of porcine liver injury--from biomolecular logic gates to an animal model

A biocatalytic cascade for the analysis of the simultaneous increase in the concentration of two biomarkers characteristic of liver injury (alanine transaminase, ALT, and lactate dehydrogenase, LDH) was tested on real samples acquired from an animal model (domestic pigs, Sus scrofa domesticus) suffering from traumatic liver injury. A two-step reaction biocatalyzed in the presence of both enzyme-biomarkers resulted in the oxidation of NADH followed by optical absorbance measurements. A simple qualitative, YES/NO, test allowed for distinction between animals with and without the presence of liver injury with the probability of 92%. These data represent the first demonstration of applying binary logic systems for the analysis of real biomedical samples.