title: Instability of Plasma and Serum Progastrin-Releasing Peptide During Repeated Freezing and Thawing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Progastrin-releasing peptide (proGRP) is a promising biomarker for small cell lung cancer. However, not much is known about how sample processing and storage conditions affect the stability of proGRP. Here, we examined the effects of repeated freeze-thaw cycles on the stability of proGRP in plasma and serum.
  
  
  METHODS
  Concentrations of proGRP were measured in plasma and serum samples exposed to two, three, or four freeze-thaw cycles and these were compared with values of corresponding samples exposed to one cycle (baseline). We also performed the area under the receiver-operating-characteristic curve (AUC) analysis to determine whether the differences of proGRP concentrations between each paired plasma and serum sample (ΔproGRP) can be used for identifying the samples that have been exposed to multiple freeze-thaw cycles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Concentrations of proGRP gradually decreased in both plasma and serum samples with increasing numbers of freeze-thaw cycles. Reduction rates of proGRP concentrations were greater in serum than in plasma samples and serum proGRP levels declined with statistical significance (p< 0.001) up to 10.1% after four freeze-thaw cycles. The ΔproGRP measurement showed fair accuracy (AUC = 0.741) for identifying samples that had been through four freeze-thaw cycles. The sensitivity was 82.8% and specificity was 62.1% at an optimal cut-off point of > 4.9.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study shows that the stability of circulating proGRP is affected in both plasma and serum samples by repeated freezing and thawing. We also show that ΔproGRP could be used for identifying paired plasma and serum samples subjected to multiple freeze-thaw cycles.
authors.affiliation: National Biobank of Korea, Center for Genome Sciences, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae-Eun
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
authors.forename: Jin-Hyun
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: National Biobank of Korea, Center for Genome Sciences, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: National Biobank of Korea, Center for Genome Sciences, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea.
authors.forename: Seul-Ki
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: National Biobank of Korea, Center for Genome Sciences, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji-In
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: National Biobank of Korea, Center for Genome Sciences, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea.
authors.forename: So-Youn
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
authors.forename: Shine Young
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: biobank; cryopreservation; plasma; progastrin-releasing peptide stability; serum