Quantification of coagulation factor VIII in human plasma with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry using a selective sample purification with camelid nanobodies

Patients with hemophilia A are currently diagnosed and monitored by measuring the activity of coagulation factor VIII (FVIII) in plasma mostly with the one-stage clotting assay (OSA). Although the OSA is routinely available in many clinical laboratories, it has in some circumstances relatively low sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, the FVIII activity as a biomarker does not always correlate with the bleeding phenotype. Therefore, we have developed a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method to quantify the concentration of coagulation FVIII in plasma which would allow us to investigate the relation between FVIII plasma concentration, FVIII activity and bleeding tendency in future studies. LC-MS/MS method was set up by firstly dissociation Von Willebrand factor (VWF) from coagulation factor VIII by triggering the coagulation cascade to occur thus generating active factor VIII (FVIIIa). FVIIIa was then selectively extracted by means of immunoaffinity interaction using anti-FVIII camelid nanobody, after which FVIIIa was eluted, heat denatured and trypsin digested. Finally, a FVIII specific peptide was used as a surrogate for quantification by mass spectrometry. Critical method parameters such as antibody amount, incubation time, sample volume and type of streptavidin 96 well plate were optimized. The method was validated according to European Medicines Agency (EMA) guidelines where an LLOQ of 1 ng/mL was obtained using 50 μL of citrate plasma sample. Within-run and between-run accuracy and precision for quality control (QC) samples, LLOQ (1 ng/mL), QC Low (5 ng/mL), QC Med (150 ng/mL), QC High (300 ng/mL) were within the threshold of 15% relative standard deviation (RSD) and Bias. The selective immunoaffinity method which was used in combination with a highly sensitive mass spectrometer allowed for an unpresented LLOQ of 1 ng/mL utilizing 50 μL plasma sample. This method will be used to investigate the beneficial value of FVIII plasma concentration which may be used in conjunction with FVIII activity for patient diagnosis and dosage optimization.