Materials and Method

An automated procedurehas been developedfordeterminingserum iron content and iron-binding capacity with a new iron-chelating ligand, a 5. pyridyl.benzodiazepin-2-onederivative.A simplifiedmanifoldand flowsys-tem, together with improved reagent combinations, offer distinct advan-tages over existing automated procedures. The results obtained by auto. mated analysis for serum iron and iron-binding capacity agree excellently withthoseobtainedby thecorrespondingmanual procedure. Additional Keyphrases chelation of iron #{149} AutoAnalyzer INCREASING CLINICAL INTEREST in serum iron con-tent and iron-binding capacity as objective assessments of human nutritional status and for the differentiation of anemias has increased the demand for these determinations so much that use of automated analyses has become feasible. Published automated analytical methods in which iron-chelating ligands are used (1-7) have, on de-tailed evaluation, demonstrable technical short-comings. This report presents an automated adaptation of a new procedure for serum iron that was introduced recently and in which a 5-pyridyl-benzodiazepin-2-one derivative is used as the iron-chelating ligand (8)