2024 · The Science of the total environment · paywalled
Effects of storage temperature and time on metabolite profiles measured in dried blood spots, dried blood microsamplers, and plasma
Petrick et al.
The finding, in our words
Dried blood microsamplers (Mitra) and dried blood spots maintained metabolite stability comparable to plasma at minus 80 degrees Celsius, and both dried formats remained stable at minus 20 degrees Celsius while plasma showed reduced stability. At refrigerated temperature, Mitra microsampler profiles were more stable than plasma or dried blood spots, particularly for lipids, suggesting capillary blood microsampling could support sample collection outside clinical settings where ultra-cold storage is unavailable.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This study found that dried blood microsamples, particularly those collected with the Mitra device, provided metabolic profiles comparable or superior to conventional plasma, supporting their use as a viable alternative for untargeted metabolomics.
This review found that volumetric microsampling devices, such as Mitra, HemaPEN, HemaXis DB10, and Tasso-M20, overcome haematocrit bias, whilst Telimmune plasma separation cards enable direct plasma collection without centrifugation. These technologies support patient-centric, decentralised sampling, though the authors note that clinical validation remains limited across different drugs and patient populations.
Capillary samples collected using dried blood spots and Mitra microsamplers showed strong agreement with venous plasma for quantifying IgG antibodies against most vaccine-preventable diseases. Sensitivity was high for the majority of pathogens, though the study noted that antibody stability declined at room temperature over time, favouring cold storage for longer durations.
The authors developed and optimised a dual LC-MS workflow for non-targeted metabolomics from blood microsamples, comprising a 15-minute HILIC-MS method for polar metabolites and an RPLC-MS method for mid- to non-polar compounds. A 20% water/80% methanol extraction with rehydration offered a practical compromise that detected numerous metabolite features across amino acid, acylcarnitine and bile acid pathways, enabling decentralised metabolomic analysis.
In matched clinical samples from rheumatoid arthritis, VAMS and DBS showed strong agreement for methotrexate polyglutamates (slopes 0.95-1.07; bias within -4.21% to 0.36%; SRCC ≥ 0.969), with up to 100% of total MTXPG results within ±20% limits; capillary microsampling agreed closely with whole blood but differed from red blood cells, indicating matrix-specific differences that must be accounted for when interpreting against RBC-based reference values.