Standardization of the Pre-analytical Phase of Blood Metabolomics Studies
ZHANG Shu
FAN Ping
CHEN Lei
YANG Juqin
TAN Weiwei
XI Jialei
LI Shujun
HUANG Wei
Abstract：Blood is regarded as preferred subjects for metabolomics studies because of their minimally invasive collec-tion and simple preprocessing methods.However,there are various metabolites with different physicochemical properties,sen-sitivity to environmental changes,and proneness to oxidation,aggregation,or degradation in vitro.A number of pre-analytical variables affect the validity of laboratory test results,including selection of collection subjects,sample type(serum/plasma),collection tube(anticoagulant/procoagulant),hemolysis,precentrifugation delay,centrifugation speed,postcentrifugation de-lay,transportation,and long-term storage,and freeze-thawing cycles.Thus,identification and control of such variables,min-imizing sample-to-sample variability caused by these technical issues is crucial to obtain valid analytical data.This paper re-views the effect of various pre-analytical steps on clinical blood metabolomics,and how to assess the quality of collected blood samples,and provides summary and recommendations.Furthermore,it provides guidance for multicenter clinical studies and large population cohort studies.
Keywords：MetabolomicsSerumPlasmaPreanalytical phaseQuality control markersHemolysisLong-term storageFreeze-thaw cycle
Publication Date：2023-10-20
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 272-277 )