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IntroductionUntargeted metabolomics holds significant promise for biomarker detection and development. In resource-limited settings, a dried blood spot (DBS)-based platform would offer significant advantages over plasma-based approaches that require a cold supply chain.ObjectivesThe primary goal of this study was to compare the ability of DBS- and plasma-based assays to characterize maternal metabolites. Utility of the two assays was also assessed in the context of a case-control predictive model in pregnant women living with HIV.MethodsUntargeted metabolomics was performed on archived paired maternal plasma and DBS from n = 79 women enrolled in a large clinical trial.ResultsA total of 984 named biochemicals were detected across both plasma and DBS samples, of which 627 (63.7%), 260 (26.4%), and 97 (9.9%) were detected in both plasma and DBS, plasma alone, and DBS alone, respectively. Variation attributable to study individual (R2 = 0.54, p

Early detection of insulin resistance (IR) and/or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) is crucial for delaying and preventing the progression toward type 2 diabetes. We recently developed and validated a straightforward metabolite-based test for the assessment of IR and IGT in a single LC–MS/MS method. Plasma samples were diluted with isotopically-labeled internal standards and extracted by simple protein precipitation. The extracts were analyzed by LC–MS/MS for the quantitation of 2-hydroxybutyric acid (0.500–40.0 μg/mL), 3-hydroxybutyric acid (1.00–80.0 μg/mL), 4-methyl-2-oxopentanoic acid (0.500–20.0 μg/mL), 1-linoleoyl-2-hydroxy- sn -glycero-3-phosphocholine (2.50–100 μg/mL), oleic acid (10.0–400 μg/mL), pantothenic acid (0.0100–0.800 μg/mL), and serine (2.50–100 μg/mL). Liquid chromatography was carried out on a reversed phase column with a run time of 3.1 min and the mass spectrometer operated in negative MRM mode. Method validation was performed on three identical LC–MS/MS systems with five runs each. Sufficient linearity (R 2 > 0.99) was observed for all the analytes over the ranges. The imprecision (CVs) was found to be less than 5.5% for intra-run and less than 5.8% for inter-run for the seven analytes. The analytical recovery was determined to be between 96.3 and 103% for the seven analytes. This fast and robust method has subsequently been used for patient sample analysis for the assessment of IR and IGT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]