Development of an easy non-destructive particle isolation protocol for quality control of red blood cell concentrates.

The extracellular vesicle release in red blood cell concentrates reflects progressive accumulation of storage lesions and could represent a new measure to be implemented routinely in blood centres in addition to haemolysis. Nevertheless, there is currently no standardized isolation protocol. In a previous publication, we developed a reproducible ultracentrifugation-based protocol (20,000 ×  protocol) that allows to classify red blood cell concentrates into three cohorts according to their vesiculation level.

High frequencies of cytotoxic T cell precursors against minor histocompatibility antigens after HLA-identical BMT: absence of correlation with GVHD.

Limiting dilution analysis was used to quantify the frequency of cytotoxic T cell precursors (CTLp) against minor histocompatibility (H) antigens induced by HLA-identical BMT. The development of CTLp was monitored serially in ten patients developing either acute (n = 3), acute and chronic (n = 4) or no (n = 3) GVHD. In blood samples of patients taken shortly after BMT (< 100 days) a high frequency of anti-recipient CTLp was found (mean 1/3433).

Isolation of an HLA-A2.1 extracted human minor histocompatibility peptide.

Purified HLA-A2.1 molecules obtained by affinity chromatography of 6 x 10(10) Epstein Barr virus (EBV)-transformed B lymphocytes were used in an attempt to isolate the human HLA-A2.1-restricted minor histocompatibility (H) peptides H-Y and HA-2.

HLA class II+ human keratinocytes present Mycobacterium leprae antigens to CD4+ Th1-like cells.

In a variety of inflammatory skin diseases like leprosy, keratinocytes (KC) are induced to express MHC class II molecules and may therefore serve as antigen-presenting cells (APC) for MHC class II restricted T cells infiltrating the lesions. However, KC have been thought to be improper APC for MHC class II restricted T cells and to drive T cells into an anergic rather than into an activation state. We evaluated this issue in relation to leprosy and tested whether HLA-DR+ KC could present M.