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Review
. 2020 Jun 3;10(6):229.
doi: 10.3390/metabo10060229.

Recommendations and Best Practices for Standardizing the Pre-Analytical Processing of Blood and Urine Samples in Metabolomics

Raúl González-Domínguez  1   2 , Álvaro González-Domínguez  3   4 , Ana Sayago  1   2 , Ángeles Fernández-Recamales  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Recommendations and Best Practices for Standardizing the Pre-Analytical Processing of Blood and Urine Samples in Metabolomics

Raúl González-Domínguez et al. Metabolites. .

Abstract

Metabolomics can be significantly influenced by a range of pre-analytical factors, such as sample collection, pre-processing, aliquoting, transport, storage and thawing. This therefore shows the crucial need for standardizing the pre-analytical phase with the aim of minimizing the inter-sample variability driven by these technical issues, as well as for maintaining the metabolic integrity of biological samples to ensure that metabolomic profiles are a direct expression of the in vivo biochemical status. This review article provides an updated literature revision of the most important factors related to sample handling and pre-processing that may affect metabolomics results, particularly focusing on the most commonly investigated biofluids in metabolomics, namely blood plasma/serum and urine. Finally, we also provide some general recommendations and best practices aimed to standardize and accurately report all these pre-analytical aspects in metabolomics research.

Keywords: blood; collection; metabolomics; pre-analytics; processing; storage; urine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Summary of pre-analytical factors influencing blood and urinary metabolomics.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of sampling alternatives for blood and urine collection.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary of pre-processing factors influencing blood and urinary metabolomics.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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