High-Throughput Metabolomics in Transfusion Medicine

Over the past two decades, the introduction of omics technologies to the field of transfusion medicine has contributed to a significant expansion of our understanding of the storage lesion and its impact on transfusion recipients. Hundreds of application papers have leveraged the implementation of novel high-throughput omics techniques, such as the high-throughput metabolomics approach described herein. We will briefly describe how these approaches have been used to learn more about erythrocyte storage biology, chronic and massive transfusion recipient biology, and the development or testing of novel blood products. While this chapter mainly focuses on red blood cell biology, these exact same approaches have been applied to other blood cells (e.g., platelets, white blood cells, and reticulocytes) or biofluids (plasma and serum) and are thus potentially useful to a broad readership of transfusion or hematology experts with an interest in metabolism.