The DBS (Dried Blood Spot) Autosampler
Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling is an emerging technology for bioanalysis, especially useful in the clinical and pharmaceutical laboratory. The DBS approach offers easy sample collection, transport and storage. It also offers the possibility for patients who require regular monitoring to take their own blood samples in the comfort of their home, saving patient stress, transport costs, clinic resources-and provides a convenient sampling option in remote locations where medical facilities are not readily available.
Dried Blood Spot technology employs proprietary DBS “cards”, upon which blood samples are spotted – typically from a capillary tube – and allowed to dry. Analytes within these dried spots on cards show significant stability during transport and storage.
To analyze the spots, they must be either a) removed from the card – often by physically punching them out - collected, extracted, and ultimately injected into an analyzer, or b) introduced directly into the analyzer from the card.
The revolutionary DBS Autosampler available from iChrom Solutions enables the latter approach - unattended, quantitatively, and fully-automated. This approach maintains the integrity of the sample and results in both time and cost savings.
The DBS Autosampler sandwiches the spot on the card between two sides of a flow-through, leak-tight clamp, allowing for an elution solvent to flush spot components directly into the desired analyzer (e.g., a UHPLC-MS/MS).
Innovative, patented Flow-Through Desorption technology (FTD™)++ provides this direct elution of dried blood spots from DBS cards, leading to consistent quality and elimination of tedious and irreproducible manual disc punching or costly robotics.
FTD™ also allows additional on-line protocol steps for SPE sample cleanup and analyte separation – prior to elution – upstream of analysis in an automated workflow.
This fully-automated workflow procedure occurs in minutes, and provides maximum analyte sensitivity without manual intervention.
Further, the DBS Autosampler technology allows for analysis of other biological fluids in a similar manner, providing many new opportunities to the bioanalytical scientist.
++US patent no. US 8586382 B2
DBS Autosampler Features
System Control
The DBS Autosampler from iChrom Solutions operates under control of the advanced CHRONOS software, a platform developed by Axel Semrau®.
Parallel Processes
CHRONOS software facilitates parallel processes for sample preparation and analysis. Using CHRONOS, a card spot may have a clean-up protocol executed on it, while the previous spot is being analyzed. Then – when the new spot is ready for elution, immediately after introduction into the chromatograph - a new spot may be processed in parallel.
In addition, CHRONOS organizes the connection to the mass spectrometer control and data system. Thus all CHRONOS-controlled systems are capable of processing multiple batches - even across multiple assays – quickly and reliably, with the highest analytical performance… fully unattended.
In addition, CHRONOS allows for seamless, single-table sample queues in numerous commercial mass spectrometer data acquisition and control software packages.
CHRONOS employs a clear, user-friendly interface, which minimizes the number of parameters that need to be changed; relevant values are recorded in tabular form, and only those values requiring change need be edited. This means a complete sample list can be generated conveniently in only a few steps.
A graphic representation of the sample processing is created at the touch of a button; overall duration and current progress can readily be followed in real time. Multi-stage sample preparation procedures can be run in parallel by means of an integrated algorithm. Here also, it is possible to call up a graphic representation of the sequence of events.
CHRONOS combines the sample list for the DBS Autosampler control with the MS data system list, so the user only has to administer one list. This simplifies queue handling and avoids errors which could be caused with multiple sample tables.
CHRONOS Summary Specifications:
(NOTE – only those specifications applying to CHRONOS control of the DBS Autosampler, as well as connections to commercial mass spectrometers, are itemized here. For a full list of all CHRONOS features and capabilities, contact Axel Semrau, GmbH & Co.)