Differences of microparticle patterns between sickle cell anemia and hemoglobin SC patients

PLoS One. 2017 May 10;12(5):e0177397. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177397. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Sickle cell anemia (SCA) and hemoglobin SC (HbSC) disease are the two most common forms of sickle cell disease (SCD), a frequent hemoglobinopathy which exhibits a highly variable clinical course. Although high levels of microparticles (MPs) have been consistently reported in SCA and evidence of their harmful impact on the SCA complication occurrences have been provided, no data on MP pattern in HbSC patients has been reported so far. In this study, we determined and compared the MP patterns of 84 HbSC and 96 SCA children, all at steady-state, using flow cytometry. Most of circulating MPs were derived from platelets (PLTs) and red blood cells (RBCs) in the two SCD syndromes. Moreover, we showed that HbSC patients exhibited lower blood concentration of total MPs compared to SCA patients, resulting mainly from a decrease of MP levels originated from RBCs and to a lesser extent from PLTs. We did not detect any association between blood MP concentrations and the occurrence of painful vaso-occlusive crises, acute chest syndrome and pulmonary hypertension in both patient groups. We also demonstrated for the first time, that whatever the considered genotype, RBC-derived MPs exhibited higher externalized phosphatidylserine level and were larger than PLT-derived MPs.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Anemia, Sickle Cell / blood
  • Anemia, Sickle Cell / pathology*
  • Blood Platelets / pathology*
  • Cell-Derived Microparticles / pathology*
  • Child
  • Erythrocytes / pathology*
  • Female
  • Hemoglobin SC Disease / blood
  • Hemoglobin SC Disease / pathology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Phosphatidylserines / analysis

Substances

  • Phosphatidylserines

Grants and funding

Part of this study was supported by the "CPER / Région Guadeloupe", grant nr. J-2-1-J210002 (MR), “Conseil Régional de la Martinique” (MR), by the PHRC-API 2012 (MDHD), and by the “Conseil Régional de la Guadeloupe”, fellowship to YG.