Comparison of self-sampling blood collection for N-glycosylation analysis

Self-sampling of capillary blood provides easier sample collection, handling, and shipping compared to more invasive blood sampling via venepuncture. Recently, other means of capillary blood collection were introduced to the market, such as Neoteryx sticks and Noviplex cards. We tested the comparability of these two self-sampling methods, alongside dried blood spots (DBS), with plasma acquired from venepunctured blood in N-glycoprofiling of total proteins. We have also tested the intra-day repeatability of the three mentioned self-sampling methods. Capillary blood collection with Neoteryx, Noviplex and DBS was done following the manufacturers' instructions and N-glycoprofiling of released, fluorescently labelled N-glycans was performed with ultra-performance liquid chromatography.

Comparability with plasma was assessed by calculating the relative deviance, which was 0.674 for DBS, 0.092 for Neoteryx sticks, and 0.069 for Noviplex cards. In repeatability testing, similar results were obtained, with Noviplex cards and Neoteryx sticks performing substantially better than DBS (CVs = 4.831% and 7.098%, compared to 14.305%, respectively). Our preliminary study on the use of Neoteryx and Noviplex self-sampling devices in glycoanalysis demonstrates their satisfactory performance in both the comparability and repeatability testing, however, they should be further tested in larger collaborations and cohorts.