A multilaboratory validation study of LC/MS biomarker assays for three lysophosphatidylcholines.

Aim: Although the fit-for-purpose approach has been proposed for validation procedures and acceptance criteria for biomarker assays, practical biomarker assays to facilitate clinical application and regulatory documents on biomarker assays remain limited. Materials & methods: We assigned six independent laboratories and selected three lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs): LPC(16:0), LPC(18:0) and LPC(18:1) as model biomarkers. Using LC-MS, the following key validation parameters were evaluated: calibration curve, carryover, parallelism, precision and relative accuracy and these values were similar among all laboratories. Further, we determined LPC levels in six lots of rat plasma at unknown concentrations and compared them among the laboratories. Conclusion: Our multilaboratory validation and reproducibility data are useful for the development of future biomarker assay validation procedures, as well as regulatory documents.