Serum C2 activity was measured in 135 individuals drawn from a panel of 418 tissue-typed blood donors. The study group included all donors with HLA antigens A10 and B18. Heterozygote C2 deficiency (C2Dhet) was defined by reference to the range of C2 activity in previously studied obligate heterozygotes. Five donors were C2Dhet. Family studies confirmed that C2Dhet was associated in all instance...

Research into adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs) has demonstrated the feasibility of their use in clinical applications due to their ease of isolation and abundance in adipose tissue. We isolated AD-MSCs from young and old dogs, and the cells were subjected to sequential sub-passaging from passage 1 (P1) to P7. Canine AD-MSCs (cAD-MSCs) were examined for proliferation kinet...

OBJECTIVE We present the operational organization and daily workflow of our Hamburg model and the results of the years 2007-2011 concerning donation of corneas, musculoskeletal and, since 2010, cardiovascular tissues. METHODS Each of the about 3,600 deceased every year undergoes an evaluation process by two coordinators on duty, the tissue coordinator and the family coordinator. All donation ...

Microbiological contamination of retrieved tissues has become a very important topic and a critical aspect in the safety of allografts. We have analysed contamination in 11,129 tissues with a longitudinal contamination profile for each individual tissue. More specifically, 10,035 musculoskeletal tissues and 1,094 cardiovascular tissues were retrieved from a total of 763 multi-tissue donors, of ...

BACKGROUND After the largest outbreaks of Q fever ever recorded in history occurred in the Netherlands, concern arose that Coxiella may be transmitted via donated tissues of latent or chronically infected donors. The Dutch Health Council recently advised to screen tissue donors, donating high risk tissues, for Coxiella infection. METHODS After validation of an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) test fo...

Background: Iron deficiency and its related anemia, which is the world’s most widespread nutritional deficiency, can be one of the possible consequences of regular blood donation. This research was carried out to compare iron stores in regular blood donors and first-time blood donors in Tehran Regional Blood Transfusion Center. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out on 2,149 male bl...

Xenografting of testis tissue from immature males from several mammalian species to immunodeficient mouse hosts results in production of fertilization-competent sperm. However, the efficiency of testis tissue xenografting from adult donors has not been critically evaluated. Testis tissue xenografting from sexually mature animals could provide an option to preserve the genetic material from valu...

The ability of human mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (hMSCs) to differentiate into various mesenchymal cell lineages makes them a promising cell source for the use in tissue repair strategies. Since the differentiation potential of hMSCs differs between donors, it is necessary to establish biomarkers for the identification of donors with high differentiation potential. In this study, we show tha...

PURPOSE Ocular surface disease following penetrating keratoplasty has been shown to increase patient morbidity and adversely affect graft survival. Five cases of dense central subepithelial opacification were noted in keratoplasty patients who received tissue from donors who had chemotherapy prior to death. Cancer-related deaths account for approximately 20% of the cornea donor pool. The purpos...