Biomarker Analysis of Stored Blood Products: Emphasis on Pre-Analytical Issues

Millions of blood products are transfused every year; many lives are thus directly concerned by transfusion. The three main labile blood products used in transfusion are erythrocyte concentrates, platelet concentrates and fresh frozen plasma. Each of these products has to be stored according to its particular components. However, during storage, modifications or degradation of those components may occur, and are known as storage lesions. Thus, biomarker discovery of in vivo blood aging as well as in vitro labile blood products storage lesions is of high interest for the transfusion medicine community. Pre-analytical issues are of major importance in analyzing the various blood products during storage conditions as well as according to various protocols that are currently used in blood banks for their preparations. This paper will review key elements that have to be taken into account in the context of proteomic-based biomarker discovery applied to blood banking

Prenatal metabolomic profiles mediate the effect of maternal obesity on early childhood growth trajectories and obesity risk: the Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood (CANDLE) Study.

BACKGROUND: Maternal prepregnancy obesity is an important risk factor for offspring obesity, which may partially operate through prenatal programming mechanisms. OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to systematically identify prenatal metabolomic profiles mediating the intergenerational transmission of obesity. METHODS: We included 450 African-American mother-child pairs from the Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood (CANDLE) Study pregnancy cohort. LC-MS was used to conduct metabolomic profiling on maternal plasma samples of the second trimester. The childhood growth outcomes of interest included BMI trajectories from birth to age 4 y (rising-high-, moderate-, and low-BMI trajectories) as well as overweight/obesity (OWO) risk at age 4 y. Mediation analysis was conducted to identify metabolite mediators linking maternal OWO and childhood growth outcomes. The potential causal effects of maternal OWO on metabolite mediators were examined using the Mendelian randomization (MR) method. RESULTS: Among the 880 metabolites detected in the maternal plasma during pregnancy, 14 and 11 metabolites significantly mediated the effects of maternal prepregnancy OWO on childhood BMI trajectories and the OWO risk at age 4 y, respectively, and 5 mediated both outcomes. The MR analysis suggested 6 of the 20 prenatal metabolite mediators might be causally influenced by maternal prepregnancy OWO, most of which are from the pathways related to the metabolism of amino acids (hydroxyasparagine, glutamate, and homocitrulline), sterols (campesterol), and nucleotides (N2,N2-dimethylguanosine). CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides further evidence that prenatal metabolomic profiles might mediate the effect of maternal OWO on early childhood growth trajectories and OWO risk in offspring. The metabolic pathways, including identified metabolite mediators, might provide novel intervention targets for preventing the intrauterine development of obesity in the offspring of mothers with obesity