Is the stability of folates in dried blood microsamples sufficient to perform home-sampling studies?
Heughebaert & Stove
The finding, in our words
Folate vitamer stability in dried blood microsamples was strongly dependent on temperature and time, with levels remaining within 85 to 115 per cent of baseline at -20°C and 4°C for up to two weeks in both VAMS and DBS, but only lasting three days at room temperature in VAMS and failing at 37°C. The authors conclude that decentralised sampling for folate status monitoring is feasible if transport temperature and duration are controlled, though pretreatment with stabilising agents and desiccant use offered only partial improvement at ambient temperature.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
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.
A comparison of blood microsampling found that after 35 days, PFAS recovery changed by over 10% for five analytes using the Neoteryx hemaPEN and four using Whatman 903, but zero using the Neoteryx Mitra. The Mitra retained 45 of 49 PFAS within 70-130% recovery, showing its high stability for decentralised biomonitoring without contamination risks.
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.
A UHPLC-HRMS assay quantified 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 and D3 from 20 µL Mitra VAMS samples with accuracy under 10% and precision under 11%, LOQ 5 ng/mL: sensitive enough to flag deficiency and simple enough for untrained self-collection, enabling year-round vitamin-D monitoring.