Faculty News
"Rapid Sensor-Based Method to Detect S-Nitrosohemoglobin Deficiency/Stability in Red Blood Cells"
Shuichi Takayama, PhD; Robertson Davenport, MD; and Mark Meyerhoff, PhD
2008 funding: $100,000
Approximately 14 million units of blood are transfused yearly in the United States. While blood transfusion is widely regarded as life-saving, there is a growing concern that red blood cell (RBC) storage has a negative effect on this life saving oxygen delivery. Emerging evidence suggests that RBC infusion may actually harm some people. The loss of the RBC bioactivity that saves lives occurs very rapidly and is closely linked to the degradation of S-nitrosohemoglobin (HbSNO) in RBCs. A team of scientists, and clinicians are developing rapid HbSNO detection methods that will assess levels of RBC HbSNO in donated blood in a clinical setting where mortality or risk of blood transfusion is high. This device could be used to study, ultimately decrease loss of nitric oxide (NO) from HbSNO during storage, and also enhance transfusion effectiveness by prescreening RBC donors for HbSNO.
Recent studies suggest that HbSNO within erythrocytes plays a significant role in providing a source/reservoir of vasodilatory NO in microcirculation, especially in hypoxic tissue. Further, large donor-to-donor variability and continually decreasing levels of HbSNO within RBCs during storage in blood banks has been implicated in the observed increase of adverse reactions when transfusing patients with packed RBCs, especially those that have been stored even beyond 1 day. The ultimate goal of this UM Coulter funded project is to adapt a newly developed electrochemical sensor-based method for detecting S-nitrosothiols to a very simple microfluidic diagnostic test platform that will be capable of quantifying the levels of HbSNO in very small volumes of either packed RBCs or whole blood samples from blood donors. Such a system could ultimately be used to conveniently assess the initial levels of HbSNO in freshly donated/harvested RBCs, as well as to examine the stability of HbSNO within RBCs under various storage conditions in the hope of determining conditions where decreases of HbSNO are minimized.
Posted on October 28, 2008, 2:04 pm