Blood & Plasma & Serum Metabolomics Service

Blood contains more than 4,000 endogenous small molecules metabolites, which can better reflect the overall level of the organism and is one of the samples commonly used in clinical studies and animal experiments. The metabolism in blood is dynamically regulated and its composition is constantly changing. Many unstable components may be oxidized, polymerized or degraded by small changes in exogenous factors. We have optimized the pre-treatment process of blood samples to standardize the operation, thus reducing individual differences between samples and preventing significant dynamic changes in blood sample metabolites in vitro, while ensuring reproducibility of experiments.

Serum and plasma are commonly used blood-derived samples, and although they are similar in composition and properties, they yield different findings as biological samples in metabolomics.

In contrast to plasma, serum requires 30-60 min of coagulation, during which activated platelets may release a variety of compounds (e.g., proteins, lipids, etc.) that affect the metabolic composition of serum. Serum may contain elevated levels of some metabolites, such as glucose, amino acids, phosphatidylcholine, and phosphatidylethanolamine, while some metabolites may be significantly lower, such as uric acid, citric acid, pyruvate, and phosphatidylinositol. Plasma samples are stable and reproducible, but anticoagulants can cause matrix effects. It is important to ensure that each sample has the same clotting time when using serum.

According to different analysis needs, Creative Proteomics is based on LC-MS/MS, and provides you with customized metabolomics analysis services based on your samples. We can achieve absolute quantitative analysis of target metabolites in samples and untargeted metabolomics analysis of all metabolites to screen differential metabolites.

What We Can Provide:

Untargeted metabolomics analysis:

• Metabolic profile analysis
• Screening for differential metabolites
• Metabolic pathway analysis of differential metabolites
• Discover new biomarkers

Fig 1. The workflow of untargeted metabolomics analysis

Targeted metabolomics analysis:

• Mode: SRM / MRM
• Analysis content: Standard curve creation. Raw data preprocessing. Absolute quantification of metabolites.

Fig 2. The workflow of target metabolomics analysis

Sample Requirements

• For plasma samples, blood should be collected in an anticoagulation tube, centrifuged at low temperature (4°C) (2,000×g, 20 min), and the supernatant should be stored.
• For serum samples, blood should be collected in a centrifuge tube, left at room temperature for 30-60 min, followed by centrifugation at low temperature (4°C) (2,000×g, 10 min), and the supernatant should be stored.

The samples are relatively stable when stored at -80℃.

Deliverables

• Experimental procedure
• Parameters of liquid chromatography / gas chromatography and MS
• MS raw data files and MS data quality checks
• Bioinformatics analysis report

Turnaround time: 1-4 weeks

Bioinformatics Analysis

Creative Proteomics provides metabolomics services for blood & plasma & serum samples, and will deliver accurate and detailed data and analysis reports to you. If you want to detect other metabolites but have not found them, you can tell us through the inquiry form, and our technicians will communicate with you.