Blood Transfusion Centre of Slovenia

Blood donors are often regarded as healthier than the general population, a phenomenon described as the "healthy donor effect". This perception arises from strict donor selection criteria and routine pre-donation screening, yet these evaluations focus largely on hemoglobin, vital signs, and a short medical history, thereby providing only a partial assessment of donor health. As cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading global cause of mortality, assessing cardiovascular risk factors in blood donors provides an opportunity to evaluate whether this group is genuinely healthier or simply appears so due to selection bias. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,543 Slovenian blood donors. All donors completed a medical questionnaire, underwent a physical examination, and vital signs measurements. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from self-reported weight and height. Information on diseases, medication use, smoking, and physical activity was also collected. A subgroup of 506 donors without reported illness and not taking medication was classified as "healthy". This subgroup underwent additional laboratory investigations, including complete blood count, lipoproteins, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. A composite CVD risk score was developed by integrating traditional and novel risk factors. Overall, 32% of donors reported at least one chronic condition and 19% reported medication use, most frequently antihypertensive therapy. Median BMI was 26.3 kg/m2, with 56% of donors overweight or obese. Nearly 40% had elevated BP, including 7% with systolic BP ≥160 mmHg. According to the CVD risk score, 49% were low risk, 29% moderate, and 25% high, with men more often at increased risk. Despite eligibility screening, many donors exhibited subclinical CVD risk factors. These findings confirm that transfusion services can contribute beyond donor and recipient safety, offering a valuable platform for prevention and early detection, and strengthening public health surveillance.

The global rise in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) over the past five decades has coincided with the widespread adoption of a Western diet and lifestyle. These conditions, characterised by chronic inflammation, are shaped by complex interactions between genetic, environmental, immunological, and microbial factors. The Western diet rich in, refined sugars, unhealthy fats, ultra-processed foods and excess salt, is increasingly recognised as a major contributor to immune dysfunction, microbial dysbiosis, and compromised intestinal barrier integrity, all hallmarks of IBD. Systems biology offers a powerful framework for untangling the complexity of IBD by integrating large-scale biological data from various sources, leveraging computational modelling, high-throughput analyses, and network-based approaches to identify key regulatory pathways and molecular interactions driving disease progression. Complementary to this, nutritional epidemiology provides critical insights into the role of diet in IBD pathogenesis. By combining systems biology with nutritional epidemiology, researchers can move toward personalised dietary interventions and new therapeutic strategies, offering new opportunities for prevention and addressing the growing burden of IBD in societies adopting Western lifestyles. This review synthesise current findings and proposes integrated approaches for future precision prevention and treatment of IBD.

Platelets play a crucial role in blood transfusions, and understanding the changes that occur during their storage is important for maintaining the quality of preparations. In this study, we examined key alternating factors, with a particular focus on platelet activation and the release of extracellular vesicles. Additionally, we compared two detection methods—imaging flow cytometry (IFC) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA)—for their effectiveness in detecting particles. Platelet concentrates were prepared by pooling buffy coats from five blood group-compatible donors in an additive solution. Samples were analysed after one, three, and seven days of storage for residual white blood cells (WBCs), glucose levels, platelet activation, and extracellular vesicle concentrations. Over the storage period, the total platelet concentration decreased slightly, while the residual WBC count remained stable. Glucose levels declined, whereas platelet activation and extracellular vesicle concentration increased, with a positive correlation between the two. The particle size remained relatively unchanged throughout the storage period. Ultimately, despite controlled processing and storage conditions, platelet activation, and the release of extracellular vesicles still occurred, which may have implications for transfusion recipients. Although an optimised method is still needed, IFC has proved to be specific and potentially appropriate for detecting extracellular vesicles in transfusion preparations.

Modular protein engineering is a powerful approach forfabricatinghigh-molecular-weight assemblies and biomaterials with nanoscale precision.Herein, we address the challenge of designing an extended nanoscalefilamentous architecture inspired by the central rod domain of humandystrophin, which protects sarcolemma during muscle contraction andconsists of spectrin repeats composed of three-helical bundles. Amodule of three tandem spectrin repeats was used as a rigid buildingblock self-assembling via coiled-coil (CC) dimer-forming peptides.CC peptides were precisely integrated to maintain the spectrin α-helixcontinuity in an appropriate frame to form extended nanorods. An orthogonalset of customizable CC heterodimers was harnessed for modular rigiddomain association, which could be additionally regulated by metalions and chelators. We achieved a robust assembly of rigid rods severalmicrometers in length, determined by atomic force microscopy and negativestain transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, these rigid rodscan serve as a scaffold for the decoration of diverse proteins orbiologically active peptides along their length with adjustable spacingup to tens of nanometers, as confirmed by the DNA-PAINT super-resolutionmicroscopy. This demonstrates the potential of modular bottom-up proteinengineering and tunable CCs for the fabrication of functionalizedprotein biomaterials.

Background and Objectives: Most patients who are successfully resuscitated from cardiac arrest remain comatose, and only half regain consciousness 72 h after the arrest. Neuroprognostication methods can be complex and even inconclusive. As mitochondrial components have been identified as markers of post-cardiac-arrest injury and associated with survival, we aimed to investigate cytochrome c and mtDNA in comatose patients after cardiac arrest to compare neurological outcomes and to evaluate the markers' neuroprognostic value. Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study included 86 comatose post-cardiac-arrest patients and 10 healthy controls. Cytochrome c and mtDNA were determined at admission. Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) was measured after 72 h. Additional neuroprognostication methods were performed when patients remained unconscious. Cerebral performance category (CPC) was determined. Results: Cytochrome c was elevated in patients compared to healthy controls (2.029 [0.85-4.97] ng/mL vs. 0 [0.0-0.16], p < 0.001) but not mtDNA (95,228 [52,566-194,060] vs. 41,466 [28,199-104,708] copies/μL, p = 0.074). Compared to patients with CPC 1-2, patients with CPC 3-5 had higher cytochrome c (1.735 [0.717-3.40] vs. 4.109 [1.149-8.457] ng/mL, p = 0.011), with no differences in mtDNA (87,855 [47,598-172,464] vs. 126,452 [69,447-260,334] copies/μL, p = 0.208). Patients with CPC 1-2 and CPC 3-5 differed in all neuroprognostication methods. In patients with good vs. poor neurological outcome, ROC AUC was 0.664 (p = 0.011) for cytochrome c, 0.582 (p = 0.208) for mtDNA, and 0.860 (p < 0.001) for NSE. The correlation between NSE and cytochrome c was moderate, with a coefficient of 0.576 (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Cytochrome c was higher in comatose patients after cardiac arrest compared to healthy controls and higher in post-cardiac-arrest patients with poor neurological outcomes. Although cytochrome c correlated with NSE, its neuroprognostic value was poor. We found no differences in mtDNA.

In the past, identification of HLA alleles was limited to sequencing the region of the gene coding for the peptide binding groove, resulting in a lack of sequence information in the HLA database, challenging HLA allele assignment software programs. We investigated full-length sequences of 19 HLA class I and 7 HLA class II alleles, and we extended another 47 HLA class I alleles with sequences of 5′ and 3′ UTR regions that were all not yet available in the IPD-IMGT/HLA database. We resolved 8638 unknown nucleotides in the coding sequence of HLA class I and 2139 of HLA class II. Furthermore, with full-length sequencing of the 26 alleles, more than 90 kb of sequence information was added to the non-coding sequences, whereas extension of the 47 alleles resulted in the addition of 5.5 kb unknown nucleotides to the 5′ UTR and > 31.7 kb to the 3′ UTR region. With this information, some interesting features were observed, like possible recombination events and lineage evolutionary origins. The continuing increase in the availability of full-length sequences in the HLA database will enable the identification of the evolutionary origin and will help the community to improve the alignment and assignment accuracy of HLA alleles.