Dried blood spot analysis with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry: Trends in clinical chemistry

Abstract

Dried blood spot samples are simple to prepare and transport, enabling safe andaccessible diagnostics, both locally and globally. We review dried blood spot sam-ples for clinical analysis, focusing on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometryas a versatile measurement tool for these samples. Dried blood spot samplescan provide information for, for example, metabolomics, xenobiotic analysis,and proteomics. Targeted analyses of small molecules are the main applica-tion of dried blood spot samples and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry,but emerging applications include untargeted metabolomics and proteomics.Applications are highly varied, including analyses related to newborn screen-ing, diagnostics and monitoring of disease progression and treatment effects ofvirtually any disease, as well as studies into the physiology and effects of diet,exercise, xenobiotics, and doping. A range of dried blood spot products andmethods are available, and applied liquid chromatography-mass spectrometryinstrumentation is varied with regard to liquid chromatography column formatsand selectivity. In addition, novel approaches such as on-paper sample prepara-tion (e.g., selective trapping of analytes with paper-immobilized antibodies) aredescribed. We focus on research papers published in the last 5 years.