Evaluation of metabolite stability in dried blood spot stored at different temperatures and times
Cui et al.
The finding, in our words
Sixty-nine metabolites in dried blood spots remained stable across storage temperatures of 4°C, 25°C and 40°C for 21 days, whereas seventy-eight metabolites showed instability, with phosphatidylcholines and triglycerides most affected. This demonstrates that storage conditions materially alter metabolite integrity, which is critical for biomarker selection and data quality in patient-centric, home-sampling protocols.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Volumetric absorptive microsampling showed better precision than dried blood spots and a metabolic profile closer to whole blood, with stable signalling lipids for 24 hours at room temperature but significant changes after one week unless stabilised, indicating feasibility for decentralised sampling with the need for storage strategies.
A comparison of three patient-centric dried blood microsampling devices, paper DBS, Mitra and Tasso-M20, found strong to excellent correlation with traditional venous plasma for measuring branched-chain amino acids and ketoacids. Participants reported high acceptability and expressed a strong willingness to use these devices for decentralised self-collection.
In an untargeted metabolomics study, microsampling devices, particularly the Mitra and Capitainer, yielded metabolic profiles comparable or superior to plasma in feature number and intensity, and in the precision and stability of some metabolites. This supports their potential for large-scale, decentralised metabolic profiling, though the captured metabolite profile was application-dependent.
An optimized 4D-lipidomics UHPLC-HRMS protocol using stable isotope internal standards enabled semi-quantitative profiling of 432 unique lipid features from 10 ̢L dried blood spot samples with high analytical reproducibility. The workflow demonstrates the viability of capillary blood microsampling for large-scale, remote population lipidomics and metabolic profiling.
Microsampling enables less invasive, patient-centric self-collection of capillary blood for remote monitoring of metabolites and lipids, overcoming conventional venipuncture constraints. Recent device innovations address dried blood spot limitations, particularly haematocrit and volume variations, expanding decentralised applications in population health, drug discovery and multi-omics research.