a Institute of Human Genetics, Medical Faculty , Saarland University , Homburg , Germany.
b Chair for Clinical Bioinformatics, Medical Faculty , Saarland University, Center for Bioinformatics , Saarbrücken , Germany.
Crit Rev Clin Lab Sci. 2019 Mar;56(2):111-117. doi: 10.1080/10408363.2018.1561641. Epub 2019 Jan 29.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) hold great promise as blood-borne and circulating biomarkers for numerous diseases. However, the reliability of such liquid biopsies is particularly impacted by problems associated with the handling of biological liquids in the pre-analytical stage of biomarker processing. Dried blood spots (DBS) and other capillary blood microsampling devices offer a way to circumvent many of these complications. DBS are supposed to be far less sensitive to collection protocols, storage conditions, and transport processes, while offering the possibility for a decentralized sample collection. In addition, DBS are minimally invasive and require very small amounts of blood, thereby facilitating blood collection from small children or patients at risk by blood drawing. Here, we summarize the current state of knowledge about DBS-derived miRNAs. Experimental studies on miRNA from DBS especially emphasize the influence of the adsorptive material and the importance of drying and rehydration protocols. The present studies are, however, difficult to compare as they use different readout-systems, ranging from PCR-based quantification of single miRNAs to next-generation sequencing (NGS) of the entire miRNome. The data underscore the need for procedure standardization and the development of general guidelines on handling and evaluating miRNA biomarkers derived from DBS.
微小 RNA（miRNAs）作为众多疾病的血液传播和循环生物标志物具有巨大的应用潜力。然而，这些液体活检的可靠性特别受到生物液体在处理生物标志物过程的分析前阶段相关问题的影响。干血斑（DBS）和其他毛细血管血微采样装置为解决这些并发症提供了一种方法。DBS 据推测对采集方案、储存条件和运输过程的敏感性要低得多，同时还提供了分散采集样本的可能性。此外，DBS 具有微创性，只需很少量的血液，从而便于从小儿童或有采血风险的患者中采集血液。在这里，我们总结了关于 DBS 衍生 miRNA 的现有知识状态。关于 DBS 中 miRNA 的实验研究特别强调了吸附材料的影响，以及干燥和复水方案的重要性。然而，由于这些研究使用了不同的读取系统，从基于 PCR 的单个 miRNA 定量到整个 miRNA 组的下一代测序（NGS），因此难以进行比较。这些数据强调了需要对程序进行标准化，并制定关于处理和评估源自 DBS 的 miRNA 生物标志物的一般准则。
