Are there important considerations for plasma generation and urine handling?

It is strongly advised to follow the recommendations for preparing sample material provided in the corresponding Protocol Sheet to ensure reliable results.

Plasma: It is recommended to perform plasma separation immediately after blood collection when using EDTA as anticoagulant to prevent the release of genomic DNA into the plasma fraction.

Urine: Because circulating cell-free DNA in non-stabilized urine samples is rapidly degraded after sample collection due to high nuclease activity, eluates may contain no DNA or exhibit low DNA concentration. Therefore, it is recommended to stabilize urine samples. Even when using stabilized urine, it is recommended to perform a centrifugation step immediately after stabilization to prevent the release of genomic DNA from cells. Alternatively, non-stabilized urine samples can be processed immediately after collection and centrifugation using ATL pretreatment and automated DNA extraction as described in the corresponding Protocol Sheet.