Dried serum spots on pre-punched filter paper discs are ready-to-use storage and shipping devices for blood-borne antigens and antibodies.

Dried serum spots that are well prepared can be attractive alternatives to frozen serum samples for shelving specimens in a medical or research center's biobank and mailing freshly prepared serum to specialized laboratories. During the pre-analytical phase, complications can arise which are often challenging to identify or are entirely overlooked. These complications can lead to reproducibility issues, which can be avoided in serum protein analysis by implementing optimized storage and transfer procedures.

High performance liquid chromatography: A versatile tool for assaying antiepileptic drugs in biological matrices.

Epilepsy is a recurrent long-term illness occurring in approximately 1.0% of the world's population. There are currently about 29 approved antiepileptic drugs for the management of epilepsy.

Profiling of intact blood proteins by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry without the need for freezing - Dried serum spots as future clinical tools for patient screening.

Rationale: To open up new ways for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS)-based patient screening, blood serum is the most preferred specimen because of its richness in patho-physiological information and due to ease of collection. To overcome deleterious freeze/thaw cycles and to reduce high costs for shipping and storage, we sought to develop a procedure which enables MALDI-MS protein profiling of blood serum proteins without the need for serum freezing.

Methods: Blood sera from patients/donors were divided into portions which after pre-incubation were fast frozen.

Precision Diagnostics by Affinity-Mass Spectrometry: A Novel Approach for Fetal Growth Restriction Screening During Pregnancy.

Fetal growth restriction (FGR) affects about 3% to 8% of pregnancies, leading to higher perinatal mortality and morbidity. Current strategies for detecting fetal growth impairment are based on ultrasound inspections. However, antenatal detection rates are insufficient and critical in countries with substandard care.

Comparison of blood serum protein analysis by MALDI-MS from either conventional frozen samples or storage disc-deposited samples: A study with human serum from pregnant donors and from patients with intrauterine growth restriction.

Mass spectrometric profiling of intact serum proteins, i.e. determination of relative protein abundance differences, was performed using two different serum sample preparation methods: one with frozen and thawed serum, the other with at room temperature deposited and dried serum.

Maternal Apolipoprotein B100 Serum Levels are Diminished in Pregnancies with Intrauterine Growth Restriction and Differentiate from Controls.

Purpose: Intrauterine growth restriction, a major cause of fetal morbidity and mortality, is defined as a condition in which the fetus does not reach its genetically given growth potential. Screening for intrauterine growth restriction biomarkers in the mother's blood would be of great help for optimal pregnancy management and timing of delivery as well as for identifying fetuses requiring further surveillance during their infancies.

Experimental Design: A multiplexing serological assay based on liquid chromatography-multiple-reaction-monitoring mass spectrometry is applied for distinguishing serum samples of pregnant women.