Abstract
Introduction: The development of micromethods for the analysis of biochemical markers of chronic disease in capillary blood has considerable application in clinical epidemiology. Serum apolipoproteins (apo) A-I, A-II and B, and cholesterol fractions, are important biochemical markers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. In this study, the analysis of apo A-I, apo A-II and apo B, and cholesterol fractions, was compared in capillary and venous serum. Methods: Capillary (fingertip; 100-500 μL) and venous (median cubital) blood was collected simultaneously from 10 healthy adult subjects into serum tubes (Greiner Bio-one, Germany) following an overnight fast. Lipoprotein fractions in serum were separated by agarose gel electrophoresis, stained for cholesterol, and immunofixed for apo A-I, apo A-II and apo B. Results: The immunofixation staining patterns of apo A-I, apo A-II and apo B in venous serum have been described in a corresponding abstract. Capillary serum from each subject showed identical immunofixation staining patterns for the apolipoproteins to those measured in the venous serum. There was also close agreement between the absolute values for total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and lipoprotein (a) cholesterol (when present) in the samples of capillary and venous serum. Discussion: The collection of capillary blood is cheaper, safer, less traumatic and more suitable for mass screening in clinical epidemiological studies than venous blood collection. This study has shown minimal differences between capillary and venous serum for the qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis of apo A-I, A-II and B, and quantitative analysis of cholesterol fractions. Therefore, capillary (fingertip) blood appears to be suitable for epidemiological research into CVD risk requiring the analysis of multiple biochemical markers. Poster presented at the 10th Asian Pacific Congress of Clinical Biochemistry in conjunction with the AACB's 42nd Annual Scientific Conference.