Analysis of Inflammatory Mediators in Newborn Dried Blood Spot Samples by Chip-Based Immunoaffinity Capillary Electrophoresis.

A chip-based immunoaffinity capillary electrophoresis (ICE) system has been developed for measuring inflammatory mediators in dried blood samples routinely taken from newborn babies. A defined area of each dried blood spot was removed from the sample card and its contents eluted. The recovered eluates were injected into the chip and the analytes of interest isolated by the immunoaffinity disk within the chip. The captured analytes were labeled in-situ with a red light-emitting laser dye and electro-eluted into the chip separation channel. Electrophoretic separation of all of the analytes was achieved within 2.0 min with quantification of each peak being performed by online LIF detection and integration of each peak area. The degree of accuracy and precision achieved by the chip-based system is comparable to conventional immunoassays and the system is robust enough to be applied to the analysis of clinical samples.