Detecting EPO in Microvolumetric Capillary Serum Shipped at Ambient Temperature for Antidoping Testing
Miller et al.
The finding, in our words
Endogenous erythropoietin was detectable in 100% of microvolumetric capillary serum samples shipped at ambient temperature, and recombinant erythropoietin remained detectable under varied storage and shipping conditions except extreme heat, indicating that blood microsamples can be shipped without cold chain for ERA testing.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A validated two-step LC-MS/MS protocol can identify 91 prohibited doping agents from a single dried blood spot collected on either cellulose cards or volumetric absorptive microsampling devices. This demonstrates robust multi-analyte screening from capillary blood, supporting decentralised anti-doping programmes where venous sampling is impractical.
Capillary blood collected with Tasso+ devices demonstrated strong agreement with venous blood for primary Athlete Biological Passport markers (haemoglobin, reticulocytes, OFF-score, ABPS) with correlations ≥0.9, though platelet count showed poor concordance. Despite 44 of 209 samples failing pre-analytical checks mainly due to coagulation, high athlete acceptance and minimal pain support capillary sampling as a less invasive, viable alternative for decentralised anti-doping controls.
ALAS2 and CA1 mRNA were reliably quantified from venous-cellulose, capillary-cellulose and Tasso-M20 dried blood spots with strong linear agreement (r ≥ 0.96) and no bias for ALAS2. CA1 showed modest proportional bias of 9-22% only when Tasso-M20 was compared with cellulose cards in the rEPO cohort, but no significant differences in relative expression across matrices were observed at any timepoint. These findings support decentralised capillary sampling for longitudinal anti-doping monitoring.
The authors found that a single microdose of recombinant EPO was detectable up to 72 hours using ITP and CP methods, though the Tasso microsampling device showed lower sensitivity than Mitra and Capitainer. Additionally, isotope ratio mass spectrometry successfully detected testosterone micro-dosing in all analysed samples, supported by serum testosterone levels.
Erythropoietin was unstable in urine stored at room temperature or 37 degrees, with degradation in eight of twelve participants, while serum samples showed greater stability. Recombinant EPO detectability was identical across urine, venous serum and capillary serum collected with the Tasso+ SST device, leading the authors to recommend capillary serum collection for doping control to improve overall detection of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents.