For a number of conditions like blood-related cancers, solid malignancies, pregnancy-related complications, transplant surgery, supportive care in cardiovascular surgery, injury-related trauma, and severe anemia, transfusion of red blood cells (RBCs) is a life-saving treatment.
Often, particularly in developing countries, there is a severe shortage of whole blood and blood components such as red blood cells in the blood banks.
Possibilities to generate RBCs outside the body (in vitro) from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are being explored by researchers all around the world. Different types of cells found in the blood can be obtained from these HSCs. From HSCs, several groups have been able to produce RBCs in the laboratory. However, the process takes around 21 days and it is a long process. For the generation of RBCs on a large scale for clinical purposes, the resources required to grow cells in the laboratory over such a long duration can be very expensive.
A way to tackle this issue has been found by a team of researchers led by ex-scientist at the Department of Biotechnology’s National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, Dr. L. S. Limaye.
The researchers found that when the growth medium is added with a hormone called erythropoietin’ (EPO) and a very low concentration of a small protein molecule calledtransforming growth factor β1’ (TGF-β1), this process can be speeded up. The processing time could be cut down by three days.
The RBCs formed using this procedure were found to be normal by examination of many of their characteristics, including physical appearance, and several tests to assess the quality of the cells formed.
Further explorations with the findings would be beneficial. Assessing the relevance of using this approach for blood transfusions in the future could be improved by additional investigations based on the insights gained from these studies.