Blood Transfusion Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Blood Transfusion, including details on blood donation, blood types, leukemia.

Antibody-induced neutrophil activation as a trigger for transfusion-related acute lung injury in an ex vivo rat lung model.

Sachs UJ, Hattar K, Weissmann N, Bohle RM, Weiss T, Sibelius U, Bux J

Department of Internal Medicine, Institute for Clinical Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. ulrich.sachs@med.uni-giessen.de

Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is a hazardous complication of transfusion and has become the leading cause of transfusion-related death in the United States and United Kingdom. Although leukoagglutinating antibodies have been frequently shown to be associated with the syndrome, the mechanism by which they induce TRALI is poorly understood. Therefore, we reproduced TRALI in an ex vivo rat lung model. Our data demonstrate that TRALI induction by antileukocyte antibodies is dependent on the density of the cognate antigen but does not necessarily require leukoagglutinating properties of the antibody or the presence of complement proteins. Rather, antibody-mediated activation of neutrophils seems to initiate TRALI, a process that could be triggered by neutrophil stimulation with fMLP. Antibody-mediated neutrophil activation and subsequent release of reactive oxygen species may thus represent key events in the pathophysiologic cascade that leads to immune TRALI.

Published 25 January 2006 in Blood, 107(3): 1217-9.
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