Abstract
The blood-type-mismatch problem, in addition to shortage of blood donation, in blood transfusion has prompted the researchers to develop universal blood that does not require blood typing. In this work, the “cell-in-shell” (i.e., artificial spore) approach is utilized to shield the immune-provoking epitopes on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). Individual RBCs are successfully coated with supramolecular metal-organic coordination complex of ferric ion (FeIII) and tannic acid (TA). The use of isotonic saline (0.85% NaCl) is found to be critical in the formation of stable, reasonably thick (20 nm) shells on RBCs without any aggregation and hemolysis. The formed “RBC-in-shell” structures maintain their original shapes, and effectively attenuate the antibody-mediated agglutination. Moreover, the oxygen-carrying capability of RBCs is not deteriorated after shell formation. This work suggests a simple but fast method for generating immune-camouflaged RBCs, which would contribute to the development of universal blood.
Highlights
The “cell-in-shell” structures (a.k.a., artificial spores [1,2,3] or micrometric Iron Men [4]) are the emerging cell hybrid entities in biomedical and nanomedicinal fields, where individual live cells are encapsulated within nanometric (
Many wrinkles were clearly observed only on the membrane of lysed red blood cells (RBCs)@[FeIII -tannic acid (TA)] cells. These results suggested that the FeIII -TA coat reinforced the integrity of RBC membranes; it has been well reported that hollow capsules are folded when they collapse, unless their capsule shells have defects [32,35]
Coordination-driven supramolecular complexation between FeIII and TA was rapid, and made uniform films on individual RBC surfaces, which was confirmed by various characterizations
Summary
The “cell-in-shell” structures (a.k.a., artificial spores [1,2,3] or micrometric Iron Men [4]) are the emerging cell hybrid entities in biomedical and nanomedicinal fields, where individual live cells are encapsulated within nanometric (
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