RESEARCH BRIEF: Means of Improving Platelet Storage Identified
Karen Hoffmeister, of the Hematology Division at BWH, and colleagues have identified a possible means of storing platelets in cold temperatures to improve usability. These findings appeared online on September 27, 2009, in Nature Medicine.
At sites of injury, platelets, tiny disc-shaped cells devoid of a nucleus that are produced by the bone marrow, become activated and interact with plasma proteins such as fibrin to form clots. For more than 50 years, platelet transfusions have prevented life-threatening blood loss in trauma, surgery, and bone marrow transplant patients. However, unlike red blood cells, refrigeration of platelets leads to their rapid clearance from circulation after transfusion. Platelets are therefore stored at room temperature, which limits their shelf life to five days and seriously compromises their use for transfusion.
Researchers dissected two platelet clearance pathways by which sugar residues on platelets are recognized by liver immune cells (macrophages) and, unexpectedly, by hepatocytes, which differentially control the clearance of refrigerated platelets dependent of their time in the cold. Inhibition of chilled platelet clearance by both immune cells and hepatocytes may potentially present a strategy to attain the goal of storing platelets in the cold.
The National Institutes of Health and the Pew Scholars Award funded this research.
Send
Feedback to: 
