Membrane water permeability as a quality predictor for red blood cells during hypothermic storage

• Author / Creator

  Alshalani, Abdulrahman

• Hypothermic storage of red blood cell is essential in the field of transfusion medicine to fulfill the huge clinical demand for red blood cell products in situations of massive bleeding or red blood cell disorders. The prime goal of hypothermic storage is to maintain the quality and safety of stored red blood cells. The cell membrane is one of the red blood cell main components that needs to be structurally and functionally preserved throughout storage. It is characterized by its semipermeability which allows the movement of water to maintain osmotic equilibrium with external media and allows for cell shrinkage or swelling. The cell membrane, however, experiences progressive damages during storage. Several factors are proposed to influence the storage lesion including the storage length, blood component manufacturing method, and donor characteristics. This thesis will characterize the membrane water permeability properties during storage and will apply water permeability measurements to determine the contributions of the storage length, blood component manufacturing method, and donor-related characteristics to membrane water permeability variation. Red blood cell units were obtained from volunteer blood donors and categorized according to the duration of storage, manufacturing method, and donor characteristics. Validated techniques were applied to characterize the red cell membrane water permeability and membrane quality properties. The membrane water permeability parameters included the hydraulic conductivity of water permeability, osmotically inactive fraction, and Arrhenius activation energy. The membrane quality measures were deformability, total hemoglobin, supernatant hemoglobin, percent hemolysis, osmotic fragility, hematologic indices of mean corpuscular iii volume, the mean corpuscular hemoglobin, and the mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, supernatant potassium, and supernatant sodium. It was found that membrane water permeability measurements were significantly increased as a function of the storage length (at day 21 of storage), which remained elevated for the rest of 42 days of storage. This was accompanied by significant elevations in the osmotically inactive fraction and Arrhenius activation energy. This study, also, found that units processed by a whole blood filtration manufacturing method exhibited significantly higher membrane water permeability from the start of storage until the end of 42 days of storage compared to units manufactured using a red cell filtration. There were no significance differences between groups in dependent to donors’ age and sex. These results revealed that both the storage length and manufacturing process had significant contributions to the water permeability and various quality parameters with limited contributions from the blood donors’ age and sex. In conclusion, this thesis has expanded the knowledge of membrane quality during the hypothermic storage by applying a novel method to assess membrane water permeability. According to these findings, it is therefore likely that such connections exist between water permeability increase and membrane damages during storage. This work also tested possible factors affecting the RBCs quality during hypothermic storage. Findings of this thesis proposed that part of the membrane-related storage lesion occur before the first day of storage due to the effect of blood manufacturing process and donor variability. The findings of this thesis highlight the importance of describing membrane water permeability properties during storage which can be a quality predictor of the biophysical and chemical changes that affect the quality of stored red blood cells during hypothermic storage.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Storage lesion
  • Hypothermic storage
  • Red blood cells
  • Water permeability

• Graduation date

  Spring 2017

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R34J0B90S

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.