Leukocyte Depletion in Dried Blood Spot Cards Enables Enrichment of Parasite DNA for Improved Sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Expanding access to simple blood collection tools is essential to monitor, control, and eliminate malaria in low-resource settings where the disease is endemic. The most common method to preserve blood is depositing fingerstick samples onto filter paper─the dried blood spot (DBS) card. While DBS cards offer more optimal storage solutions than venous blood in vacutainers, they do not provide sample cleanup or enrichment of Plasmodium DNA. These samples retain high host-to-parasite DNA ratios, which negatively affect the quality of downstream sequencing. We developed a Leukocyte Depletion Card (LDC) that substantially depletes host white blood cells from whole blood to enrich Plasmodium-infected red blood cells in a hematocrit-independent volume (9.0 ± 0.5 μL). Using quantitati

SUBMITTER: Tierney AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12724477 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature