title: Rapid removal of glycerol from frozen-thawed red blood cells.
abstract: The storage of red blood cells (RBCs) in a refrigerated state allows a shelf life of a few weeks, whereas RBCs frozen in 40% glycerol have a shelf life of 10 years. Despite the clear logistical advantages of frozen blood, it is not widely used in transfusion medicine. One of the main reasons is that existing post-thaw washing methods to remove glycerol are prohibitively time consuming, requiring about an hour to remove glycerol from a single unit of blood. In this study, we have investigated the potential for more rapid removal of glycerol. Using published biophysical data for human RBCs, we mathematically optimized a three-step deglycerolization process, yielding a procedure that was less than 32 s long. This procedure was found to yield 70% hemolysis, a value that was much higher than expected. Consequently, we systematically evaluated three-step deglycerolization procedures, varying the solution composition and equilibration time in each step. Our best results consisted of less than 20% hemolysis for a deglycerolization time of 3 min, and it is expected that even further improvements could be made with a more thorough optimization and more reliable biophysical data. Our results demonstrate the potential for significantly reducing the deglycerolization time compared with existing methods. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 29:609-620, 2013.
authors: School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA.
authors: Ratih E
authors: RE
authors: Lusianti
authors: James D
authors: JD
authors: Benson
authors: Jason P
authors: JP
authors: Acker
authors: Adam Z
authors: AZ
authors: Higgins
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D002463:Cell Membrane Permeability; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000379:methods*; D003451:Cryoprotective Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D005990:Glycerol / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006461:Hemolysis; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological
chemical_list: D003451:Cryoprotective Agents; D005990:Glycerol