Advantages of Blood Spot Specimens for Amino Acid Assessment

Summary

A blood spot amino acid test may provide information not available in plasma studies and possibly correlates more closely with long term amino acid status. Richard S. Lord, PhD

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Sensitive modern instrumentation that allows measurement of a 20-amino acid profile on a blood spot specimen has advanced routine clinical evaluation of amino acid status. The drying of blood spot specimens affords the advantage of stopping enzyme activities that can act upon glutamine during transport of plasma specimens. Blood spot specimens reveal clinically significant essential amino acid deficiency and they allow more sensitive detection of physiological changes of non-essential amino acids. The effect that dietary intake and metabolic demand have on amino acids occurs at different time scales in plasma and blood spot data, therefore preventing a direct comparison between tests.