Direct determination of trans-resveratrol in human plasma by spectrofluorimetry and second-order standard addition

Trans-resveratrol (RVT) is an antioxidant found in red grapes and their derivatives, which has been related to the reduction of cardiovascular diseases and cancer incidence.This work developed a new spectrofluorimetric–chemometric method for the direct determination of RVT in human plasma. For each measurement, excitation–emission matrices were obtained from 280 to 360 nm (excitation) and from 380 to 550 nm (emission). The strategy adopted in this work combined data treatment with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC), for extracting the pure analyte signal, using the standard addition method, which permits determinations in the presence of a strong matrix effect caused by plasma analyte–protein binding. Plasma samples were diluted 10 times and, for each, four standard additions of RVT were performed, in triplicate. A specific PARAFAC model was built for the three replicates of each sample, from three-way arrays formed by five measurements (initial sample plus four additions), 17 excitation wavelengths and 86 emission wavelengths. The best models were selected with four factors and accounted for more than 99.90% of the data variance. The loadings obtained were related to RVT and three interferences. The scores related to the analyte were used for linear regressions and all standard addition curves presented correlation coefficients equal or greater than 0.99. Good results were obtained in the concentration range from 0.10 to 5.00 μg mL−1, with recoveries between 94.0 and 110.0%. The proposed method was also validated through the estimates of several figures of merit: sensitivity, analytical sensitivity, selectivity, precision, and limits of detection and quantitation.