ABOVE: Scanning electron micrographs of healthy human red blood cells (left) and RBCs that have been treated with DNA (right)
L.K.M. LAM ET AL., SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE, 2021
Contrary to what you likely learned in school, ferrying oxygen isn’t the only function of red blood cells. In a study published today (October 20) in Science Translational Medicine, researchers show that these cells, the most abundant in circulation, also alert the immune system to the presence of bacteria, parasites, and circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA, which can signify severe disease, such as sepsis or pneumonia. This pathogen-sensing role comes at a cost, however: red blood cells (RBCs) that cart around snippets of DNA are killed, likely contributing to inflammation-associated anemia.
When Nilam Mangalmurti, a critical care physician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, was a pulmonary critical care fellow in 2005, she became interested in how transfused RBCs could cause lung injury. ...
