Table 1 . Characteristics of blood derived biospecimens in biobanks .

Bio-specimen	The characteristics and usage of biospecimen	Storage protocols	Effects of storage variations on specimen stability	Ref.
Whole blood	Collected in EDTA tubes	Have to be frozen at −80 °C if DNA extraction cannot be carry out immediately	Stable for years to at −80 °C	24,25
	Main source for germline DNA
	Use in cancer research.
Buffy coat	WBC portion of anticoagulated blood	Ideally, storage at −150 °C for RNA stability	5′ RNA tags in late handling	30-32,
	Main source for mitochondrial and germline DNA, cellular RNAs and proteins.	Storage at−80 °C preserve DNA and protein for years	Stability of RNA at −80 °C for 5 years or more
			RNAlater prevent RNA degradation
Genomic DNA	Purified from whole blood or buffy coat	should be quantified, aliquot and keep at 4 °C to avoid freeze/thaw	Stable at 4 °C for a number of weeks, at −20 °C for months, and for years at −80 °C	31
	Vital in SNP and Copy-Number variants analysis
	Epigenetic research
Cellular RNAs	Purified from buffy coat in the forms of tRNA, mRNA, miRNA.	ought to be quantified, aliquot and keep at −80 °C	Labile and degrades rapidly at temperatures greater than −80 °C. microRNAs (miRNAs) is stable at −80 °C	30,33
RBC	Provided from anticoagulated blood	should be aliquot and keep at −80 °C	Stable for years to decades at −80 °C.	22
	Suitable for membrane proteomics research