https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0799-4207
Figures
Abstract
Background
Increasingly, vaccine efficacy studies are being recommended in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC), yet often facilities are unavailable to take and store infant blood samples correctly. Dried blood spots (DBS), are useful for collecting blood from infants for diagnostic purposes, especially in low-income settings, as the amount of blood required is miniscule and no refrigeration is required. Little is known about their utility for antibody studies in children. This systematic review aims to investigate the correlation of antibody concentrations against infectious diseases in DBS in comparison to serum or plasma samples that might inform their use in vaccine clinical trials.
Methods and findings
We searched MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane library for relevant studies between January 1990 to October 2020 with no language restriction, using PRISMA guidelines, investigating the correlation between antibody concentrations in DBS and serum or plasma samples, and the effect of storage temperature on DBS diagnostic performance.
We included 40 studies in this systematic review. The antibody concentration in DBS and serum/plasma samples reported a good pooled correlation, (r2 = 0.86 (ranged 0.43 to 1.00)). Ten studies described a decline of antibody after 28 days at room temperature compared to optimal storage at -20°C, where antibodies were stable for up to 200 days. There were only five studies of anti-bacterial antibodies.
Conclusions
There is a good correlation between antibody concentrations in DBS and serum/plasma samples, supporting the wider use of DBS in vaccine and sero-epidemiological studies, but there is limited data on anti-bacterial antibodies. The correct storage of DBS is critical and may be a consideration for longer term storage.
Citation: Amini F, Auma E, Hsia Y, Bilton S, Hall T, Ramkhelawon L, et al. (2021) Reliability of dried blood spot (DBS) cards in antibody measurement: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 16(3): e0248218. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248218
Editor: William Anderson Paxton, University of Liverpool Institute of Infection and Global Health, UNITED KINGDOM
Received: May 22, 2020; Accepted: February 23, 2021; Published: March 15, 2021
Copyright: © 2021 Amini et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.
Funding: This study was funded by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and KLD is the grant holder. The grant number is: MR/S016570/1. URL of UKRI: https://www.ukri.org/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: KLD has received funding from IMmunising PRegnant women and INfants network (IMPRINT), funded by the GCRF Networks in Vaccines Research and Development which was co-funded by the MRC and BBSRC, the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant OPP1119788, Thrasher Foundation 12250 and NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre KLD2017. KLD has received an honorarium to give a seminar at Pfizer Inc. PTH is an occasional advisor to Pfizer and GSK vaccines. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Introduction
Infectious diseases are a major global cause of morbidity and mortality affecting all age groups, especially young infants. Many of these diseases could be prevented through vaccination. However, vaccine clinical trials require blood draws from infants, which are often difficult because of both the volume required and the need for correct handling and storage of the sample [1]. This is especially true in low-income countries because of issues with cold chain maintenance and logistics of transportation from remote locations to a centralised research laboratory for processing. Detection and quantification of antibodies in the serum/plasma, offer a rapid and accurate assessment of vaccine responses. To use serum/plasma samples for serological tests, trained healthcare professionals are required to draw blood [2,3]. As well as a trained professional, there is a need for specific equipment such as vacutainers to collect whole blood and a centrifuge to separate serum/plasma from whole blood. Aside from specialised equipment, freezers are required to store the samples optimally prior to analysis. Due to the expensive nature of handling (i.e. storage, electricity) of blood samples, vaccine clinical trials are often problematic in a resource-limited setting [1]. Dried blood spots (DBS) would be a possible alternative, as they require a less complex procedure to collect than whole blood, especially from young infants [3,4].
The use of DBS as a diagnostic tool dates back to the 19th century, pioneered by Robert Guthrie for neonatal metabolic disorder screening [5]. In addition to screening for metabolic disorders, DBS cards have been utilised for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening, laboratory quality control, drug testing and detection of pathogens in diverse sample types, including blood and dried plasma spots [6,7]. Numerous studies have also demonstrated that antibodies can be detected on DBS, such as in the prospective cohort study of congenital cytomegalovirus [8] and HIV infection [9]. DBS samples are cost-effective as easily portable equipment (i.e. lancet device and Whatmann 909 paper) can be used and does not require any specialist training.
Regardless of the broad use of DBS in a wide range of immunological bioanalyses, sensitivity and specificity remains uncertain regarding antibody quantification. There are no approved regulations or manufacturers’ guideline on assay protocols for quantifying antibody concentration in DBS. There are also differences in DBS in terms of the cards themselves including the size and thickness of the spots and the material used to manufacture the cards. Further, there are no guidelines on how analysis should be conducted, including optimal elution methods.
This systematic review aims to assess the evidence for the use of DBS to accurately measure antibody concentrations from natural exposure and vaccination. Further, we review long-term DBS storage conditions in preparation for future sero-epidemiological or vaccine studies.
Methodology
The protocol used for this review is registered with PROSPERO [CRD42019127840].
Search strategy
PRISMA was used as a guideline to conduct this systematic review [10]. We searched the electronic databases Embase, Medline and Cochrane library for studies published between January 1st, 1990 and October 15th 2020, comparing antibody levels in serum/plasma and DBS obtained from individuals below the age of 80 years. We additionally searched for articles describing stability of DBS at different storage temperatures over time. No language restriction was applied. The search strategy used a combination of MeSH and free terms for ‘dried blood spot’ OR ‘Guthrie card’ AND ‘antibody’. The database was last searched on the 15th October 2020.
The PRISMA checklist and the full search string are available in the S2 Method.
Eligibility criteria
The studies that were considered eligible for inclusion were original research articles, concerning infectious diseases in humans, comparing antibody titres/concentrations in serum/plasma to DBS or describing stability of antibodies in DBS from longitudinal studies of storage at different temperatures. We included studies from all countries. Opinion pieces, reviews, comments, letters and conference abstracts were excluded. Studies that used animals to compare antibody levels in serum/plasma and DBS were also excluded. Studies that had insufficient data (absence of two or more of the following: number of participants, age, sensitivity, specificity, correlation of antibody levels in matched DBS-serum/plasma samples) were also excluded. Additionally, we included all studies that investigated the stability of antibodies in DBS samples.
Study selection
Two independent reviewers (FA and EA) screened the titles and abstracts of the identified studies. After the initial screening, the reviewers obtained full texts of reports and they independently reviewed each article to determine whether it would be included in the final review. Disagreement on studies were resolved in discussion with a third reviewer (KLD).
Data extraction
The reviewers (FA and EA) independently extracted the data from the included studies using PICO (patient, intervention, comparison and outcome) [11]. The following information was extracted from the selected studies: author, publication year, country, journal, infectious disease, aim of research, study design, duration of study, number of participants, mean age, sensitivity, specificity, method of sample collection, method of sample storage, laboratory tests used for confirmation, elution method and outcome. The country income of the included studies was classified by using their respective gross domestic product (GDP) using the World Bank [12]. All studies were either classified as a low-middle income country (LMIC) (which consisted of low-income, lower middle-income and upper middle-income countries) or as a high-income country (HIC).
Data synthesis and analysis
Due to the high heterogeneity of study design, participants and outcomes, we were only able to conduct a narrative synthesis of included studies, summarising the findings with respect to each infectious disease. We calculated the pooled estimates of specificity, sensitivity and correlation coefficient using the accuracy data (true positive, true negative, false positive and false negative).
Risk of bias
The risk of bias was assessed by FA using the Cochrane Risk of Bias for non-randomised studies (ROBINS-I) tool [13]. This included information on bias due to confounding, bias in selection of participants into the study, bias in classification of interventions, bias due to deviations from intended interventions, bias due to missing data, bias in measurement of outcomes and bias in selection of the reported results. Due to the nature of the interventions considered in this review, the study’s participants could not be blinded.
Results
We identified 1,508 studies from the electronic databases published between 1st January 1990 to 15th October 2020. Using our search term, we sourced 789 papers from Medline, 667 from Embase and 52 from Cochrane. After the removal of duplicates, 837 studies were identified for abstract screening. A total of eighty-eight full text studies were assessed for eligibility, forty studies met the criteria for inclusion (Fig 1). An additional five papers investigating only antibody stability were also included.
Flowchart of studies included in the systematic review on detecting antibodies from DBS compared to venous blood samples (plasma/serum).
Study characteristics
The characteristics of the included studies are summarised in Table 1 and the antibody assessment is summarised in Table 2. Overall, DBS and serum samples from 16,255 individuals were included: 13,742 (84.5%) adults, 560 (3.4%) 5- to 17-year old’s and 2,082 (12.8%) less than five years old. Two studies reported antibodies against hepatitis A [14,15], nine hepatitis B [16–18,26–28,46,48,51], ten hepatitis C [19–22,26–28,37,46,48], eight HIV [23–28,46,50], three human papillomavirus (HPV) [29,30,37], three measles [31,32,42], three rubella [33,34,42], two syphilis [40,46], two H. pylori [35,47] and two malaria [38,49]. Twelve papers reported on Chagas disease [35], Epstein-Barr virus [36], HPV, H. pylori, hepatitis C and polyomavirus [37], Strongyloidiasis [39], pertussis [41], hepatitis E [56], Vibrio cholera [2], measles, mumps and rubella [42], tuberculosis and cytomegalovirus [43], toxoplasmosis [44], trypanosoma [45], Covid-19 [52], respectively.
Twelve studies were conducted in Europe [14,18,21,27,29,30,35,41–43,50,52], four in North America [19,20,32,36], eleven in South America [15–17,22,24,34,38,39,48,49,51], seven in Africa [23,25,26,31,40,44,45] and five in Asia [28,33,37,46,47].
The risk of confounding was high in all included studies as the risks for measure of outcomes, missing data and deviation from intended interventions were unclear (S1 Table). Twenty-two of the studies had a moderate risk of bias for reporting [15,17–19,22,24,27–32,35,37,39,40,44,46–48,51,52], whereas, seventeen of the studies had a high risk of bias for reporting [14,16,20,21,23,25,26,33,34,36,38,41–43,45,49,50]. All studies had an overall high risk of bias (S1 Table). Blinding the laboratory personnel to the results of tests were not reported in any of included studies. Thirteen studies reported the stability of DBS, 35 out of the 39 studies reported the elution method and 33 out of the 39 studies reported the diagnostic performance.
Elution method
Thirty-two (89%) reported the methodology used to elute the DBS samples [14,15,17–32,35–37,39–42,44–52]. The shortest incubation period of the DBS in elution buffer (50 μl 0.05% PBS/Tween-20) was 30 minutes [42] and the longest incubation period of the DBS in elution buffer (700 μl and 300 μl PBS/0.05% BSA) was 18–24 hours [17]) (Table 2). Nine studies used only phosphate buffered saline (DBS size ranging from 1.1-mm to 12-mm diameter, quantity of buffer ranging from 100 μl to 450 μl) to elute the DBS [17–19,25,26,32,35,37,44]. Eight studies used phosphate buffered saline with Tween (DBS size ranging from 3-mm to 12-mm diameter, quantity of buffer ranging from 50 μl to 800 μl) to elute the DBS [17,20,29,30,39,40,42,52]. Two studies compared the effect of different types of elution buffers [17,46]. Villar et al’s study found that DBS samples eluted in PBS/0.5% BSA had the lowest levels of non-specific reactivity in comparison to PBS alone, PBS/Tween 20 0.05%, PBS/Tween 20 0.05%/0.005% Sodium azide and PBS/Tween 20 0.2%/5% BSA. Whereas, Ma et al found that eluting DBS spots in 500 μl of 1%Tween-20/PBS resulted in the highest antibody recovery.
Diagnostic performance
Thirty of the studies used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) [14–17,19,21–26,29–32,34,36,38,39,41–47,49–52] with the one study using the Luminex 100 [37] or a combination of Treponema pallidum particle agglutination assay (TPPA), Treponema pallidum hemagglutination assay (TPHA) and ELISA [40]. Two studies used the architect system [27,35] as a detection method and two studies used chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA) either alone [18] or in combination with ELISA [20]. The method of antibody quantification was unclear in one study [35] and not reported in another study [28] (Table 2).
Thirty-three of the included studies reported the sensitivity [14–28,30–35,37,40,42,44–52] and twenty-six reported the specificity [14,15,17–28,30–33,35,40,44–49,51,52] of antibodies on DBS (Fig 2). The pooled sensitivity for all the infectious diseases ranged from 35.2% to 100% with a mean of 98.8% and the pooled specificity ranged from 50.4% to 100% with a mean of 95.4%. The highest mean sensitivity and specificity reported were for HIV; 97.5% and 99.6%, respectively [23–28].
The lowest mean sensitivity reported were for the malaria (P. vivax) study; 50% [49] whereas the lowest specificity reported were for syphilis; 50.4% (ELISA) [40] (Table 3).
Nineteen studies reported the correlation between antibody concentration in DBS and serum or plasma samples [13,15–17,20,24,26,28–30,32–37,39]. The pooled correlation of antibody concentration in DBS and serum/plasma samples ranged from 0.43 to 1.00 with a mean of 0.86. The highest correlation of antibody titers in DBS and serum/plasma samples was observed for Coronavirus, which was 0.97 [52]. The lowest mean correlation of DBS and serum/plasma were observed for the measles study; 0.33 [31] (Table 3).
Storage of DBS cards
Twenty-one studies reported that their DBS samples were stored at -20°C [17,19,22–24,26,27,30,33,34,36,39,41–43,46,48–50,53], three studies stored at -80°C [37,38,44], five studies stored at 4°C [16,31,32,44,51], two studies stored at room temperature [20,35] and in two studies the DBS’s were stored at -5°C to -10°C [40] and -70°C [21], respectively (Table 2).
Thirteen studies investigated the stability of antibodies in DBS samples stored at different temperatures (Table 4). Six studies [2,21,23,35,55] concluded that antibody levels in DBS were stable at room temperature, ranging from 7 days to 28 days. A slight decline was observed in antibody concentrations in DBS samples that were stored at 2–8°C, although five studies [2,26,46,55,58] demonstrated that DBS samples were stable for up to 210 days at this temperature (range of storage time: 7 to 210 days). Five studies [26,38,55,57,58] found that antibodies in DBS samples stored at 37°C were unstable with antibody concentrations steadily declining in as few as three days [55]. One study showed that antibodies in DBS samples stored at 37°C were stable until the 7th day [2]. Nine studies [2,19,24,26,38,46,55–57] demonstrated minimal variations in antibody concentrations compared to baseline cards stored at -20°C, over 21 to 200 days.
Storage of DBS cards
Twenty-one studies reported that their DBS samples were stored at -20°C [15,17,20–22,24,25,28,31,32,34,37,39–41,44,46–48,51], three studies stored at -80°C [35,36,42], five studies stored at 4°C [14,29,30,42,49], two studies stored at room temperature [18 = 33] and in two studies the DBS’s were stored at -5°C to -10°C [38] and -70°C [19], respectively (Table 4).
Thirteen studies investigated the stability of antibodies in DBS samples stored at different temperatures (Table 4). Six studies [2,19,21,33,54] concluded that antibody levels in DBS were stable at room temperature, ranging from 7 days to 28 days. A slight decline was observed in antibody concentrations in DBS samples that were stored at 2–8°C, although five studies [2,24,44,53,56] demonstrated that DBS samples were stable for up to 210 days at this temperature (range of storage time: 7 to 210 days). Five studies [24,36,53,55,56] found that antibodies in DBS samples stored at 37°C were unstable with antibody concentrations steadily declining in as few as three days [53]. One study showed that antibodies in DBS samples stored at 37°C were stable until the 7th day [2]. Nine studies [2,17,22,24,36,44,53–55] demonstrated minimal variations in antibody concentrations compared to baseline cards stored at -20°C, over 21 to 200 days.
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive systematic review to summarise the utility of DBS considering the key aspects of storage, assay methods and card handling which are all important considerations for vaccine trials and serological studies. Overall, the diagnostic accuracy and precision was high when comparing serum/plasma to DBS, indicating that DBS are a useful alternative to serum.
In a review of anti-HCV antibodies eluted from DBS, Vazques-Moron et al reported a sensitivity of >96% and a specificity of >99% for anti-HCV antibodies in DBS samples [57]. Their reported figures are similar to the pooled diagnostic performances we have shown. However, our pooled results indicate that there may be differences in both sensitivity and specificity depending on the pathogen type. A study of SARS-COV-2 antibodies demonstrated that sensitivity of matched plasma and DBS was 98.9% [52]. This is potentially useful knowledge during the pandemic as DBS could be used as an alternative to blood samples for national surveillance. DBS sampling would be more convenient for sampling as it does not require attendance at clinic to collect samples and samples can be easily sent back by post.
There are no guidelines on how DBS samples should be stored for short- and long-periods of time and this is evident from the variable storage described in the studies we reviewed. We have demonstrated that storage at room temperature (22–28°C) is acceptable for up to 28 days; making the transportation of DBS samples straightforward, especially in environments lacking cold chain. However, we also report that longer term storage should be at refrigerated or frozen temperatures after 28 days at room temperature, as antibodies degraded significantly thereafter. Overall, our results indicate that -20°C is the optimum temperature to store DBS samples for prolonged periods and it may be necessary for this to be factored into trials where samples may be stored for several years prior to use. This is consistent with the national laboratory guidelines in Denmark [58], Scotland [59], US [60] and Germany [61], which all recommend long term freezer storage. Williams et al [62] re-quantified anti-HIV antibodies in four high positive controls that were initially spotted 23 years prior to the analysis. The antibody concentrations obtained were the same as those measured 23 years prior when stored at -20°C. Yel et al’s [44] study found that IgA antibodies were stable for up to 14 days at room temperature and at 4–8°C, however, IgA antibodies were stable for up to 10 days when stored at -20°C. Going forward, it may be useful to determine the stability of the different antibody isotypes, as certain antibodies may be more stable than others on DBS.
Whilst this review provides support for the use of DBS for the investigation of immunity to several pathogens, we found only four studies which investigated the antibody concentration against bacterial infections. It is vital that more research is undertaken to understand the stability of antibodies against bacterial infections in DBS samples and how antibody concentrations compare to serum or plasma samples. This is of particular importance if DBS are to be used in vaccine trials against bacterial pathogens, which are required to reduce the impact of the continued spread of antibiotic resistance.
There is of considerable urgency as many bacterial infections are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant and DBS could be used as part of studies to measure vaccine or natural immunity to bacterial infections [63].
There are several limitations to this systematic review. Firstly, the quality of the studies included in this review were generally low (S1 Table), which precluded a meta-analysis of the data. The filter papers, blood volume collected, size of dried blood spots, elution process and the assays used for antibody quantification also differed amongst the studies, compounding the limited translation of results. Furthermore, the variability of the study designs may have also contributed to the heterogeneity which has restricted direct comparisons and prevented any meta-analysis of data, even of the same pathogen. Secondly, differences in specificity, sensitivity and correlation were noted for different pathogens, suggesting that antibodies against some pathogens in DBS may be less stable than others. Thirdly, the studies did not investigate the effect of humidity on DBS, which is often an issue in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Finally, we acknowledge that heterogeneity exists when different cut-off levels are applied between the studies.
Further data are needed to demonstrate the stability of DBS for different pathogens, especially bacteria, under different field transport and storage conditions likely to be encountered in low resource settings, including the effect of high ambient temperature or humidity levels.
Consideration of the use of DBS sampling in clinical vaccine or sero-epidemiological studies will depend on both healthcare setting and available infrastructure. The current lack of guidelines for the adaptation of assays from serum to DBS and on the optimal pre-analytical treatment of specimens makes quality control challenging. With optimal storage, DBS can be a useful adjunct to serological analysis due to their relative simplicity to take and requirements for a less rigorous cold chain, saving time and reducing costs.
Supporting information
S2 Method. Prisma checklist for systematic review and meta-analysis.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248218.s003
(DOCX)
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