Preanalytic influence of sample handling on SELDI-TOF serum protein profiles

disease biomarker discovery in human serum are prom-ising, but concerns exist regarding reproducibility of results and variability introduced by sample handling. This study investigated the influence of different pre-analytic handling methods on surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF MS) protein profiles of prefractionated serum. We investigated whether older collections with longer sample transit times yield useful protein profiles, and sought to establish the most feasible collection methods for future clinical proteomic studies. Methods: To examine the effect of tube type, clotting time, transport/incubation time, temperature, and stor-age method on protein profiles, we used 6 different handling methods to collect sera from 25 healthy volun