Validation of an Automated Extraction Procedure for Amino Acids and Acylcarnitines for Use with Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Newborn Screening

Abstract

A certified reagent kit for newborn screening was transferred on a fully automated dried blood spot platform. The dried blood spot cards are directly eluted and the extract is online guided to tandem mass spectrometry instrument, where the amino acid and acyl carnitine panel is detected. The method takes 2 minutes per sample and requires no human interaction for up to 500 samples. The method is fully standardized through the automation and the usage of only certified consumables and reference material. The manual reagent kit was first modified to fit the automated platform, secondly validated and third, successfully transferred into a routine newborn screening laboratory.