An at-home blood collection device for remote immune monitoring by high-parameter flow cytometry

At-home blood collection devices (ABCDs) can facilitate study participation for remote and rural cohorts. Previous studies used ABCDs to interrogate samples by proteomics and sequencing approaches. We wanted to address the question of whether this approach could be used to assess live immune cells with high-parameter flow cytometry to enable remote immune monitoring. We first compared blood from standard venipuncture with ABCD blood draws, followed by assessment of the impact of sample shipping on immune cell viability and phenotyping. We found that capillary blood collected with a Tasso+ device and concurrently drawn venipuncture blood samples had highly congruent immune cell composition and phenotype. Shipment of Tasso+ samples via the United States Postal Service altered the myeloid compartment, but T cell numbers, subsets, and phenotypes remained remarkably stable compared with non-shipped samples. Finally, we describe a flow cytometry analysis framework that allowed for direct sample comparison even when samples were stained and analyzed over a time period of 1.5 years. Overall, our data highlight the feasibility of using ABCDs combined with subsequent flow cytometry analysis for remote immune monitoring. Additionally, our study also identifies areas that could be improved to further promote the use of ABCDs for immune monitoring.