Sickle red blood cells (RBC) are subject to a number of important cellular changes and selection pressures. In this study, we validated a biotin RBC label by comparison to the standard 51Cr label, and used it to study changes that occur in sickle cells as they age. Sickle RBC had a much shorter lifespan than normal RBC, but the two labels gave equivalent results for each cell type. A variable n...

BACKGROUND The impact of the storage process on oxygen-carrying properties of red blood cells and the efficacy of red blood cell (RBC) transfusions concerning tissue oxygenation remain an issue of debate in transfusion medicine. Storage time and leukocyte content probably interact since longer storage duration is thought to cause greater accumulation of leukocyte-derived cytokines and red blood...

Simultaneous assay of blood lead (Pb-B) and red cell lead (Pb-Rbc) in 123 samples from 104 urban and suburban students, ages 10-18, shows the ratio of concentration (Pb-Rbc)/(Pb-B) to increase as the hematocrit decreases. On direct assay in 40 samples, plasma lead (Pb-P) was fixed in a narrow range. In 28 students with Pb-Rbc >40 mug/100 ml, the mean red cell 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) wa...

Transfusion of red blood cells (RBC) and other blood products in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. We retrospectively analyzed data of patients who underwent an isolated coronary bypass graft operation between January 1998 and December 2007. Mean follow-up was 1696+/-1026 days, with exclusion of 122 patients lost to ...

BACKGROUND Mechanical cell salvage is increasingly used during cardiac surgery. Although this procedure is considered safe, it is unknown whether it affects the red blood cell (RBC) function, especially the RBC aggregation, deformability, and the contents of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG). This study examines the following: (1) whether the cell salvage procedure influences RBC function; and (...

A rotating biological contactor (RBC) offers a low energy footprint but suffers from performance instability, making it less popular for domestic wastewater treatment. This paper presents study on an RBC integrated with membrane technology in which filtration was used as post-treatment step (RBC–ME) to achieve enhanced performance. The and RBC–ME systems were operated under different hydraulic ...

The influence of red blood cell (RBC) aggregation on blood flow in vivo has been under debate since early 1900's, yet a full understanding has still has not been reached. Enhanced RBC aggregation is well known to increase blood viscosity measured in rotational viscometers. However, it has been demonstrated that RBC aggregation may decrease flow resistance in cylindrical tubes, due to the format...

Kinetics of optical tweezers (OT)-induced spontaneous aggregation and disaggregation of red blood cells (RBCs) were studied at the level of cell doublets to assess RBC interaction mechanics. Measurements were performed under in vitro conditions in plasma and fibrinogen and fibrinogen + albumin solutions. The RBC spontaneous aggregation kinetics was found to exhibit different behavior depending ...

The hyperthermophilic archaeon Thermococcus kodakaraensis harbors a type III ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rbc(Tk)). It has previously been shown that Rbc(Tk) is capable of supporting photoautotrophic and photoheterotrophic growth in a mesophilic host cell, Rhodopseudomonas palustris Delta3, whose three native Rubisco genes had been disrupted. Here, we have examined the enzym...