Evaluation of a Protein Microarray Method for Immuno‐Typing Erythrocytes in Whole Blood

Multicenter evaluation of a high-throughput microarray platform for extensive red blood cell phenotyping and antibody screening

BACKGROUND

Blood typing and antibody screening are key elements of transfusion safety. However, available single platform, flexible, and affordable technologies are limited, especially for extended phenotyping. Microarray-based technology allows for this extended phenotyping with the flexibility of piecemeal analysis.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

This study was conducted in three blood donor laboratories to determine the performance of a high-throughput microarray-based system for ABO, RH1-RH5, and KEL1 typing, ABS and extended phenotyping (RH8, KEL2&3, FY1&2, JK1, MNS3). Specimens were tested simultaneously on local platforms and on the microarray-based system. When discrepancies were identified, resolver testing were performed.

RESULTS

In total, 4862 blood samples were tested for standard phenotype, 4257 for antibody screening and 2194 for extended phenotype. Results were available for 92.12% of the samples. The overall percent agreements were: 100% for ABO, 99.8% for RH1, 99.24% for RH2-5 and 99.86% for KEL1, 93.16% for antibody screening, and 99.68% for extended phenotype.

CONCLUSIONS

This microarray-based system provides highly comparable results to current CE marked assays. The ability to continuously test 3000 microarrays in 1 day, providing simultaneously both extended RBC phenotyping and antibody detection drives laboratory efficiencies. The results of our study validate the performance of this new technology; however, the percentage of samples without results must be reduced and further analysis is required to interpret the ABS screening performances. This could constitute a real breakthrough in transfusion, making it possible in the long term, on a single platform, to carry out all the analyses necessary for the qualification of donations.

Advances in Microfluidics for Single Red Blood Cell Analysis

The utilizations of microfluidic chips for single RBC (red blood cell) studies have attracted great interests in recent years to filter, trap, analyze, and release single erythrocytes for various applications. Researchers in this field have highlighted the vast potential in developing micro devices for industrial and academia usages, including lab-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip systems. This article critically reviews the current state-of-the-art and recent advances of microfluidics for single RBC analyses, including integrated sensors and microfluidic platforms for microscopic/tomographic/spectroscopic single RBC analyses, trapping arrays (including bifurcating channels), dielectrophoretic and agglutination/aggregation studies, as well as clinical implications covering cancer, sepsis, prenatal, and Sickle Cell diseases. Microfluidics based RBC microarrays, sorting/counting and trapping techniques (including acoustic, dielectrophoretic, hydrodynamic, magnetic, and optical techniques) are also reviewed. Lastly, organs on chips, multi-organ chips, and drug discovery involving single RBC are described. The limitations and drawbacks of each technology are addressed and future prospects are discussed.