The effect of Iodixanol on the thermodynamic properties of blood components

•Denaturation measurements revealed new fundamental effects of contrast materials.•Iodixanol significantly decreased the thermal stability of given blood components.•Structural changes could be brought about by direct Iodixanol-to-protein binding. The effects of Iodixanol contrast medium were studied on human blood samples with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Measurements on anticoagulated and non-anticoagulated samples revealed that the components of the plasma and serum turned into a thermodynamically less stable state in the presence of Iodixanol. The thermal parameters of the main transition peak changed in the same way for both the plasma and serum erythrocyte samples in the presence of Iodixanol. The Tmax1 values of the main thermal transition were not dramatically different (∼70 °C). The Tmax2 value of the peak at higher temperature range (∼80–85 °C) shifted considerably (by 3.97–4.89 °C) towards the lower temperature range, while the ΔH value showed a significant drop (∼61%) in the presence of higher concentration of Iodixanol. The results suggest that Iodixanol in blood samples can induce specific changes in the structure of blood components by altering the fundamental thermodynamic properties of the underlying biological system.