Viral nucleic acids in human plasma pools.

Background: The identification of viruses in human blood is required for epidemiologic surveillance and to detect potentially emerging threats to blood transfusion safety.

Study Design And Methods: Viral nucleic acids in plasma fractionation pools assembled from blood donors in the United States and Europe were analyzed by viral metagenomics.

Results: Anelloviruses were detected in each of the 10 plasma pools.

A highly sensitive fluorometric assay for determination of human coagulation factor XIII in plasma.

Based on the iso-peptidase activity of human plasma FXIII, a novel fluorometric assay that determines FXIII concentrations in human plasma below 0.05 IU/ml is introduced. We considered a peptide sequence derived from alpha(2)-antiplasmin (n =12) to yield high sensitivity.