Addressing pre-analytical and processing variables in plasma samples destined for multi-omic analyses via an operator-independent plasma quality control measurement

Whole blood plasma has become increasingly important as a source of bio-material for both discovery-based research and diagnostic development in a number of clinical arenas such as non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), cell-free DNA testing for early detection of cancer, and protein biomarker detection for a variety of disease states. As many biomarkers are often present in limited amounts and sensitive to degradation, it is of utmost importance to only use plasma of sufficient or defined quality. Screening parameters that objectively score plasma quality and that directly link to downstream performance can be very beneficial. In most instances, plasma quality is assessed by a rough visual inspection which is imprecise, labor-intensive, and operator-subjective.

The presentation will describe the development and implementation of a novel plasma quality control approach on the Lunatic micro-volume UV/Vis spectrometer from Unchained Labs. This reader extends the capabilities of standard UV/Vis by dissecting the measured absorbance spectrum into its relevant constituents. As a result, the typical color and clarity grading are decomposed and quantified into its biologically relevant contributors: protein as major component, heme (hemolysis), bilirubin (icteric serum) and turbidity (lipidity). Using the Lunatic instrument, these 4 plasma QC parameters can be objectively quantified in a batch-wise approach while consuming only 2 µl of plasma. The correlation between the visual inspection and Lunatic UV/Vis approach will be demonstrated, showing good correlation between the two methods but also the more robust, operator-independent and in-depth analysis of this new quantitative QC methodology. Several case studies will be presented demonstrating the correlation of plasma quality, based on this novel contaminant quantitation method, with the performance of downstream analyses. Plasma QC is an extension of the Lunatic’s existing high-throughput alternative to dye-based nucleic acid quantitation methods. Data for both applications will be discussed.