Key result
Finger stick collection of 50 μL blood enables less invasive transcriptome profiling outside clinical settings.
Why the study?
A standard operating procedure for RNA stabilization of small blood volumes collected via finger stick is needed to enable minimally invasive gene expression profiling outside clinical settings.
Provides a standard operating procedure for finger-stick blood collection and RNA stabilization, enabling minimally invasive, high-frequency sampling outside clinical settings.
With this report we aim to make available a standard operating procedure (SOP) developed for RNA stabilization of small blood volumes collected via a finger stick. The anticipation that this procedure may be improved through peer-review and/or readers public comments is another element motivating the publication of this SOP. Procuring blood samples from human subjects can, among other uses, enable assessment of the immune status of an individual subject via the profiling of RNA abundance using technologies such as real time PCR, NanoString, microarrays or RNA-sequencing. It is often desirable to minimize blood volumes and employ methods that are the least invasive and can be practically implemented outside of clinical settings. Finger-stick blood samples are increasingly used for measurement of levels of pharmacological drugs and biological analytes. It is a simple and convenient procedure amenable for instance to field use or self-collection at home using a blood sample collection kit. Such methodologies should also enable the procurement of blood samples at high frequency for health or disease monitoring applications.
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Rinchai et al. (2016) studied this question. Finger stick blood collection and Tempus RNA stabilization was evaluated. A standard operating procedure was developed for RNA stabilization of 50 μL blood volumes collected via finger stick, enabling practical and less invasive transcriptome profiling outside clinical settings.
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