High-throughput strategy for molecular identification of Vel- blood donors employing nucleic acids extracted from plasma pools used for viral nucleic acid test screening.

Background: Serologic methods to determine the Vel- phenotype require the use of rare human antisera and do not allow for many samples to be tested simultaneously, which limits their application as a tool to search for rare donors. This study developed a low-cost molecular screening strategy using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA, extracted from plasma pools for viral nucleic acid test (NAT) screening, to identify Vel- and Vel+(W) donors.

Study Design And Methods: A total of 4680 blood donors from the Brazilian southeast region were genotyped through real-time PCR targeting the 17-nucleotide (c.