Effect of L-carnitine on platelet bacterial contamination and platelet metabolism during 5 days of storage of platelet concentrates

Platelet concentrate is one of the important blood products. The platelets are stored at that is an optimum temperature for bacterial growth, so the platelet bacterial contamination is considered to be the most common infective risk factor in blood transfusion.
In this experimental study, we selected ten platelet concentrates from healthy donors prepared by Iranian Blood Transfusion Inovation Center and stored at 22º C with gentle agitation up to 5 days. Then, the antibacterial effects of LC on the platelet concentrates inoculated with the gram-positive Staphylococcus epidermidis as well as the effects of LC on the metabolic parameters of the platelets were measured.
The results showed that L-carnitine in concentration of 50 mM could significantly decrease the growth of 1.5×106CFU/ml Staphylococcus epidermidis (p Conclusions : L-carnitine can improve the metabolism and quality of the platelet concentrates, as an additive, during the storage and it can decrease bacterial growth in the platelet concentrates during the storage.