Synthetic Rebuilt Red Blood Cells - Improving on Nature
RandomFactor writes:
Phys.org reports on researchers creating synthetic Rebuilt Red Blood Cells (RRBCs) that not only match the normal characteristics of natural RBCs, but add new capabilities as well.
most artificial red blood cells have had one or a few, but not all, key features of the natural versions. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have made synthetic red blood cells that have all of the cells' natural abilities, plus a few new ones.
The newly created RRBCs have the usual characteristics of RBCs and
take up oxygen from the lungs and deliver it to the body's tissues. These disk-shaped cells contain millions of molecules of hemoglobin-an iron-containing protein that binds oxygen. RBCs are highly flexible, which allows them to squeeze through tiny capillaries and then bounce back to their former shape. The cells also contain proteins on their surface that allow them to circulate through blood vessels for a long time without being gobbled up by immune cells.
But they also have some new tricks natural cells do not, the researchers
developed modular procedures with which to load functional cargos such as hemoglobin, drugs, magnetic nanoparticles, and ATP biosensors within the RRBC interior to enable various functions, including oxygen delivery, therapeutic drug delivery, magnetic manipulation, and toxin biosensing and detection.
The RRBCs were created by
first coating donated human RBCs with a thin layer of silica. They layered positively and negatively charged polymers over the silica-RBCs, and then etched away the silica, producing flexible replicas. Finally, the team coated the surface of the replicas with natural RBC membranes.
Future studies are already planned.
Related
Artificial Blood Storable for a Year Shows Efficacy in Rabbits
Breakthrough (Mostly) Converts All Blood Types to Type O
Journal Reference:
Biomimetic Rebuilding of Multifunctional Red Blood Cells: Modular Design Using Functional Components, ACS Nano (DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.9b08714)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.