1. Introduction
BLOOD, SECONDARY
These authors contributed equally to this work.Blood microsampling combined with large panels of clinically relevant tests are of major interest for the development of home sampling and predictive medicine. The aim of the study was to demonstrate the practicality and medical utility of microsamples quantification using mass spectrometry (MS) in a clinical setting by comparing two types of microsamples for multiplex MS protein detection. In a clinical trial based on elderly population, we compared 2 µL of plasma to dried blood spot (DBS) with a clinical quantitative multiplex MS approach. The analysis of the microsamples allowed the quantification of 62 proteins with satisfactory analytical performances. A total of 48 proteins were significantly correlated between microsampling plasma and DBS (To improve public health and patient care, there are many initiatives to provide non-invasive and cost-effective blood biological testing. One major element in this field is represented by microsampling approaches [The DBS and microsample approach would allow patients to take their own samples and send them to the specialized laboratory since they do not need to be stored at −80 or −20 °C before analysis, unlike standard samples [On the other hand, there is a strong trend to generate large panels of protein and metabolic “biomarkers” (>50) with the idea of defining biological profiles with the help of artificial intelligence and with the aim of predictive medicine [The challenge is to reconcile the analysis of a very small volume of biological samples with many clinically relevant tests. This requires technologies capable of providing multiple measurements with microliter samples. Ultrasensitive immunodetection approaches using a wide range of innovative nanoscale, microfluidic, PCR-based, or digital technologies [Mass spectrometry (MS), a reference analytical technique that measures the mass-to-charge ratio (Only recently have several groups [In this context, we decided to set up a clinical trial on elderly to compare a large series of biological tests carried out from micro-sampling procedures, including plasma microsamples and DBS. These patients would benefit most from non-invasive blood sampling that can even be performed at home. This type of trial is necessary to provide evidence-based medicine. Our main objective was the quantification of 62 protein biomarkers. As secondary objective, we aim to correlate quantification of the protein biomarker panel to the clinical indexes for the detection of frailty [