Automated Determination of Acid Phosphatase

Abstract

Abstract A procedure is presented for the automated determination of acid phosphatase activity in biological materials using the Robot Chemist. Although either phenylphosphate and α-naphthylphosphate may be used as substrate in this analysis, the procedure is described in detail for serum acid phosphatase using α-naphthylphosphate in 0.1 M citrate, pH 5.2, since this substrate is more selective for prostatic acid phosphatase in human serum. Enzymically generated aα- naphthol is determined by the Emerson reaction (alkaline aminoantipyrine and ferricyanide), modified for use with this automated system. Correlations are presented between the results obtained on the Robot Chemist and the identical procedure developed for the AutoAnalyzer.