Real-time study of platelet formation under sheer-flow with Lumascope

Platelets are discoids with the size of about 2-3 µm which are responsible for thrombosis and hemostasis. Today platelet transfusion has wide clinical application in blood clotting and wound healing with over 2 million units of platelets transfused every year in the US alone. However, the need for human donors and short shelf life of five days makes the use complicated. Therefore, novel approaches to generate platelets ex vivo are being researched. A promising approach is deriving platelets from megakaryocytes. But generating a large number of platelets with megakaryocyte stimulation has proved difficult. In this research, a sheer-rate bioreactor was used to stimulate the blood flow in the body to encourage the stimulation. Formation of a high number of platelet-like-particles (PLPs) was observed after this stimulation with Lumascope microscope inside of an incubator. Videos of 6 frames per second were generated in five-minute intervals and further analysed. It was shown that introduction of sheer-flow had an almost immediate effect on the PLP generation. With a six-fold increase of PLP production under single flow. This study shows promising results in understanding the PLP formation and creates a possibility of using these condition in creating ex vivo platelets for clinical use.