Metabolic depletion of erythrocytes is accompanied by a decrease of sialic acid during blood bank storage: a reply

Erythrocytes lose about 10% of their sialic acid during banking in ACD-AG medium. In contrast to these findings, Pessina et al. could not detect a significant banking-related sialic acid decrease. The present paper explains this discrepancy. The vesiculation of erythrocytes is mainly responsible for the observed sialic acid loss during blood preservation.