Red blood cell storage in SAGM and AS3: a comparison through the membrane two-dimensional electrophoresis proteome

SAGM is currently the standard additive solution used in Europe, while AS-3 is the third additive solution that has been licensed in the USA, and is also the one used in part of Canada. Although AS-3 is based on a saline-adenine-glucose solution, it also contains citrate and phosphate. Storage of red blood cell concentrates in CPD-SAGM is known to lead to the accumulation of a wide series of storage lesions, including membrane protein fragmentation and vesiculation, as we could previously determine through 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis.

Through 2D-SDS-IEF-polyacrilamide gel electrophoresis we performed a time course analysis (day 0, 21 and 42 of storage) of red blood cell membranes from leukocyte-filtered concentrates either stored in CPD-SAGM or CP2D-AS-3.

From the present study it emerges that the membrane protein profile of red blood cells stored in presence of AS-3 appears to be slightly different from (better than) previous reports on SAGM-stored counterparts. However, the increase of total membrane spot number due to the presence of fragments at day 21 and the significant decrease at day 42 are suggestive of a universal phenomenon which is not efficiently tackled by either of the two additive solutions investigated in the present study.

To further delve into the storage lesion issue for RBCs stored in AS-3, it would be interesting in the future to assay metabolic changes over storage progression as well.