Poster Presentation Australasian Extracellular Vesicles Conference 2018

 Polymer monolith for whole blood samples processing (#70)

James Chan 1 , Rick Barber 2 , Dario Arrua 1 , Michael Breadmore 3 , Emily Hilder 1
  1. Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, Australia
  2. New Product Introduction, Trajan Scientific and Medical , Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
  3. Analytical Chemistry, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Human plasma is a complex matrix1 and the most important source of circulating biomarkers2. The quality of the biomarkers often depends not only on the biological factors such as age and physical conditions of the person, but, also the technical factors that would influence biomarker variability2,3.. A lack of standardised procedures and time variable from sampling to sample processing can result in loss and non-reproducible conditions that may affect the target analytes2,3. In this work we present results demonstrating an improved method of plasma separation from whole blood that only requires microlitre volumes of whole blood and results in an optimal yield of plasma. The structure of porous polymer monoliths having very low void volumes4 and high permeability5 make these materials exceptionally useful as a separation matrix for whole blood samples, especially in microlitre volumes. Porous polymer monoliths were prepared using 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), a water soluble biocompatible monomer6.Using UV-initiated polymerisation was achieved in a polypropylene pipette tip with direct grafting of the polymer monolith to the wall of the pipette tip. The prepared monoliths were compared to centrifugation and commercially available membranes in terms of separation performance, including equivalence sample profiles. Results will be shown for both small molecules as well as proteins in human blood samples. The viability of implementing such a material within a point-of-care testing devices will also be discussed.

  1. 1 M. Abdel-Rehim, Z. Altun, L. Blomberg, J. Mass Spectrom. 2004,39, 1488-1493 2 WS. Meilczarek, EA. Obaje, TT. Bachman, M. Kersaudy-Kerhoas, Lab Chip 2016,16, 3441-3448 3 M. Kersaudy-Kerhoas, E. Sollier, Lab Chip 2013,13, 3323-3346 4 F. Svec, J.Chromatogr.A 2010,1217,902-924 5RD. Arrua, TJ. Causon, EF. Hilder, Analyst 2012,137, 5179-5189 6 S. Roy, CY. Yue, SS. Venkatraman, LL. Ma, J. Mater.Chem. 2011,21, 15031-15040