Human platelets loaded with trehalose survive freeze-drying.

In the US, human blood platelets are stored in blood banks for 5 days, after which they are discarded, by federal regulation. This short lifetime has led to a chronic shortage of platelets, that is particularly acute in immunosuppressed patients, such as those with AIDS. The authors report that platelets can be preserved by freeze-drying with trehalose and suggest that these findings will obviate the storage problem. Analysis by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy demonstrated that the membrane and protein components of trehalose-loaded platelets after freeze-drying, prehydration, and rehydration were remarkably similar to those of fresh platelets.