Red blood cell ageing in vivo and in vitro: the Integrated Omics perspective
Author(s)
D'Alessandro, Angelo
Date Issued
May 31, 2013
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
At the dawn of the RBC biopreservation-research era, the donor and the recipient were forced to lay side by side.
A sequence of fundamental achievements, from storage solutions to plastic bags and additive solutions have lead to increase the shelf-life of stored RBCs. Cold liquid storage, enabling a 42 –day storage of RBCs, was early paralleled by long-term frozen storage, which potentially allows RBCs to be stored for more than three decades. Notwithstanding this, frozen storage has not hitherto found a broad diffusion due to its elevated costs for required facilities and trained personnel.
Accumulating data over the years showed how the storage processes negatively affect the quality of RBCs, ultimately causing risks to the recipients. These risks are stressed on the critically ill patients.
Strikingly, one entire unit out of four meeting International criteria is rapidly removed from the circulation of the recipient only after 24 hours, owing to the senescent/apoptotic-like process which RBCs undergo during storage. Therefore, notwithstanding its long history, red blood cell storage is still a “work in progress”. Indeed, recent clinical retrospective non randomized trials have stressed the likely harmful potential and the reduced safety and effectiveness of long-stored red blood cells. However, conclusive data from prospective randomized studies are still missing and, although smoke could be seen on the horizons, it is still impossible to draw an unbiased conclusion on the presence of a burning fire nearby.
On the other hand, a growing body of molecular studies has been recently built which underlines the dramatic changes red blood cells undergo during prolonged storage. Although some are reversible (such as pH drop, 2,3-DPG and ATP consumption), other events such as fragmentation and aggregation occur, triggered by many factors, including oxidative damage. These changes irreversibly compromise the erythrocyte physiology and thus its functionality, survival and immunogenic/pro-inflammatory potential upon reinfusion to the recipients.
In this chapter, we summarize the recent past of the RBC biopreservation research, by focusing on a few milestones and pointing out future perspectives.
Moreover, RBC storage lesions will be briefly listed out. All these notions will contribute to depict a well-rounded portrait of the happenings at the molecular levels during RBC storage.In particular, reactive oxygen species seem to be the eligible trigger for these lesions and the main contributor to the final quality loss (both at the macroscopic and microscopic levels) of RBCs. Hereby we describe alternative storage protocols which have been proposed in order to overpass these hurdles, such as RBC anaerobic storage.
For the foreseeable future, the “quality issue” should become a top priority in the RBC biopreservation field and early attempts to prevent storage lesions appear to be a preferable option.Definitive clinical evidence is awaited to resume these whole observations under a unique question: the need for a new storage protocol. Whether this will become a priority, alternative storage strategies could represent a clue for a not-yet definitely posed question.
At the end of this thesis, upon evaluating currently allowed (either hypothermic and cryostorage) and recently proposed storage strategies (i.e. anaerobic storage), we will outline the necessity to wonder whether researchers should continue to pursue a longer storage or start focusing on a protocol to ensure a better one. In this view, we will also mention in this chapter the “antioxidant additive solution” perspective, which will be tested as well through Omics technologies within the framework of this PhD thesis project.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Genetica e biologia cellulare
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