MicroRNA analysis for the detection of autologous blood transfusion

The use of microRNA (miRNAs) as biomarkers to detect blood transfusion is investigated as a potential strategy in antidoping analyses. Eight miRNAs (mi923, mi150, mi144, mi96, mi196a, mi30b, mi197, mi451) have been extracted and quantified from six whole blood samples from healthy athletes at three different times (t=0 within 24h from the sample collection, t=1 after 15 days, t=2 after 30 days). Another sample was withdrawn fresh from a donor and then stored as erythrocyte concentrated and, after 30 days, used to simulate an ex-vivo autologous blood transfusion with new fresh blood from the same donor. We observed an overall tendency of the miRNAs analyzed to increase their expression in samples at t=2 compared to t=0, however with great variability among the samples. The altered expression of some miRNAs resulted detectable also in the ex-vivo transfused sample with levels higher compared to the fresh non-transfused samples.