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OwnerJohannes Schumacher, Bernd Werleinventors
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A process and device are disclosed to determine the activity of enzymes in liquids in a largely automatic manner. The device for carrying out this process has a column with an chromatographic carrier for treating a measurement sample. The carrier is mixed with a substance capable of binding to an enzyme inhibitor present in the measurement sample and that corresponds to at least one enzyme. A measurement sample supply is associated to one end of the column. A valve/pump arrangement for filling at least one test tube with a carrier and at least part of the measurement sample is connected downstream of the column, in the flow direction of the measurement sample. The carrier is dissociated into cleavage products by the action of the enzyme. The rise in concentration per unit of time of at least one of the cleavage products of the carrier is sensed during an incubation time. As an alternative or supplementary step, the enzyme that corresponds to at least one enzyme inhibitor is extracted by chromatography from a measurement sample to detect enzyme inhibitors in liquids and the thus treated measurement sample is tested for inhibitor concentration and/or activity.
A process for measuring enzyme activities in liquids, which comprises withdrawing enzyme inhibitors, that correspond to at least one of the enzymes in the sample, adding a substrate to the sample manipulated in this manner, so as to get cleavage products from the substrate by reacting with the enzyme, and detecting the increasing concentration per unit of time of at least one of this cleavage products during an incubation time.
A device for measuring the activity of enzymes in liquids by means of a process according to one the claims 1 to 6 and 23 to 27, in particular characterized in that there is provided a column (1) filled with a chromatographic carrier treated with a substance capable of binding such enzyme inhibitors which correspond to at least one enzyme in the sample, and that there is a valve/pump arrangement (7, 11, 14, 15) connected in series to the end of the column (1), so as to fill at least one test vessel with a substrat and at least a part of the sample, and that there is provided a detector for measuring the increase of the concentration per unit of time of at least one cleavage product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.