Conclusions
This study reports a new method for hemoglobin deoxygenation and compares the reaction timescales and magnetic velocities between three RBC treatment methods on healthy and sickled blood. Addition of enzymes used in the ETC makes possible the reversible deoxygenation of RBCs at ambient conditions with high purity of deoxyHb. CTV results confirm that healthy RBCs have similar paramagnetic behavior compared to accepted RBC treatments. Additionally, this enzymatic treatment works well with SCD blood, collected as apheresis waste, which has a similar amount of intracellular Hb as healthy donors. Intracellular iron calculations from measurements of RBCs in medium of different viscosities further confirm the CTV system accuracy. Further, AS-3 storage solution can be buffered to the optimum pH for Oxyrase activity, without the increased viscosity when using lactate. Oxygen-dissociation curves show that RBC interactions with these enzymes do not significantly affect the oxygen binding properties, suggesting this may be a viable step in clinical blood processing in the future. In future works the authors wish to observe the effects of maintaining low DO over the course of a donated blood unit’s storage life (6 weeks) and fractionate healthy and SCD blood.