Measurement of Enzymatic Activities in Dried Blood Spots with On-Line Solid Phase Extraction-LC/MS/MS System

Lysosomes are a type of intracellular organelle that uses a variety of hydrolytic enzymes to digest waste matter. To measure the enzymatic activity of lysosomes, methods using artificial fluorescent dyes and tandem mass spectrometry are used. Of these methods, tandem mass spectrometry offers the advantage of being able to measure multiple enzymatic activities at the same time. In this example, a protocol developed at the Meyer Children's Hospital, Mass Spectrometry, Clinical Chemistry and Pharmacology Laboratory (Florence, Italy) was used to measure the enzymatic activity in dried blood spots (DBS) using an online solid phase extraction (SPE) - liquid chromatograph - tandem mass spectrometer (LCMS-8050) system.