Molecular phenotyping of oxidative stress in diabetes mellitus with point-of-care NMR system

Diabetes mellitus is one of the fastest-growing health burdens globally. Oxidative stress, which has been implicated in the pathogenesis of diabetes complication (e.g., cardiovascular event), remains poorly understood. We report a new approach to rapidly manipulate and evaluate the redox states of blood using a point-of-care NMR system. Various redox states of the hemoglobin were mapped out using the newly proposed (pseudo) two-dimensional map known as T(1)–T(2) magnetic state diagram. We exploit the fact that oxidative stress changes the subtle molecular motion of water proton in the blood, and thus inducing a measurable shift in magnetic resonance relaxation properties. We demonstrated the clinical utilities of this technique to rapidly stratify diabetes subjects based on their oxidative status in conjunction to the traditional glycemic level to improve the patient stratification and thus the overall outcome of clinical diabetes care and management.