The dried blood spot (DBS) strategy is a convenient and minimally invasive approach to blood sampling. Due to its various advantages, this sampling technique has drawn significant attention in recent years. Hematocrit (HCT)-associated bias is one of the main obstacles that hinder wider DBS application in clinical practice. An accurate HCT estimation method could help calibrate HCT-associated bias and improve the quantification accuracy. This study used a lipidomics profiling strategy to identify HCT estimation markers using liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS), which provided advantages including the potential for the simultaneous measurements of target drug and HCT values. Three sphingomyelins (SMs), specifically SM 44:1, SM 44:2, and SM 44:3, were identified as potential HCT estimation markers. The proposed estimation markers were applied to 54 DBS samples collected from two sets of patients. The analytical results revealed that the estimation errors for all of the HCT values were less than 20%, which demonstrated the feasibility of using the proposed markers to estimate the HCT values for the DBS samples. We suggest that the proposed HCT markers could provide a new strategy for HCT estimation with higher convenience using an LC-ESI-MS platform, which could contribute to wider DBS applications in clinical practice. We also demonstrated that lipidomics is a promising strategy for the discovery of HCT estimation markers in DBS samples.

中文翻译：

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通过脂质组学策略鉴定潜在的鞘磷脂标记物，用于估计干血斑中的血细胞比容

干血斑 (DBS) 策略是一种方便且微创的采血方法。由于其各种优点，这种采样技术近年来引起了极大的关注。血细胞比容 (HCT) 相关偏差是阻碍 DBS 在临床实践中更广泛应用的主要障碍之一。准确的 HCT 估计方法可以帮助校准 HCT 相关偏差并提高量化精度。本研究使用脂质组学分析策略，使用液相色谱-电喷雾电离-质谱 (LC-ESI-MS) 来识别 HCT 估计标记，这提供了优势，包括同时测量目标药物和 HCT 值的潜力。三种鞘磷脂 (SM)，特别是 SM 44:1、SM 44:2 和 SM 44:3，被确定为潜在的 HCT 估计标记。建议的估计标记应用于从两组患者收集的 54 个 DBS 样本。分析结果表明，所有 HCT 值的估计误差均小于 20%，这证明了使用所提出的标记来估计 DBS 样本的 HCT 值的可行性。我们建议所提出的 HCT 标记可以使用 LC-ESI-MS 平台为 HCT 估计提供一种新的策略，更方便，这有助于在临床实践中更广泛的 DBS 应用。我们还证明了脂质组学是在 DBS 样本中发现 HCT 估计标志物的一种很有前景的策略。这证明了使用建议的标记来估计 DBS 样本的 HCT 值的可行性。我们建议所提出的 HCT 标记可以使用 LC-ESI-MS 平台为 HCT 估计提供一种新的策略，更方便，这有助于在临床实践中更广泛的 DBS 应用。我们还证明了脂质组学是在 DBS 样本中发现 HCT 估计标志物的一种很有前景的策略。这证明了使用建议的标记来估计 DBS 样本的 HCT 值的可行性。我们建议所提出的 HCT 标记可以使用 LC-ESI-MS 平台为 HCT 估计提供一种新的策略，更方便，这有助于在临床实践中更广泛的 DBS 应用。我们还证明了脂质组学是在 DBS 样本中发现 HCT 估计标志物的一种很有前景的策略。