ArticlePloS one2015
Viable bacteria associated with red blood cells and plasma in freshly drawn blood donations.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 132 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ocular Microbiota and Intraocular Inflammation.Frontiers in immunology · 2020Pooled it
- Amustaline/glutathione pathogen-reduced red cell hemoglobin utilization in complex cardiac surgery: A post hoc analysis of the phase 3 ReCePI trial.Transfusion · 2026Trial
- Source-specific priming of lung NK cells by Pseudomonas LPS enhances resistance to bacterial pneumonia.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Article
- Pathogen Reduction of Transfused Blood Components-The End of the Beginning Rather than the Beginning of the End.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Large-scale profiling of blood microbial signatures in patients with Parkinson's disease and its association with disease progression: a cross-sectional study.EBioMedicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Critical assessment of intratumor and low-biomass microbiome using long-read sequencing.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The origin of circulating microbial DNA in the blood: where does it come from?Annals of medicine · 2025Review
- Deciphering the impact of contaminating microbiota in DNA extraction reagents on metagenomic next-generation sequencing workflows.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Advancements in understanding tumor-resident bacteria and their application in cancer therapy.Military Medical Research · 2025Review
- Pathological Alterations in Human Blood Microbiome-An Updated Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Preliminary determination of bacterial contamination of whole blood units in a Ghanaian blood bank: Providing evidence to improve transfusion safety.Vox sanguinis · 2025Article
- Investigation of the Blood Microbiome in Horses With Fever of Unknown Origin.Veterinary medicine and science · 2025Article
- Experimental tests challenge the evidence of a healthy human blood microbiome.The FEBS journal · 2025Article
- Characterization of blood microbial population in beef calves with clinical signs of sepsis using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.PloS one · 2025Article
- Blood microbiome signatures in systemic diseases: current insights, methodological pitfalls, and future horizons.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Review
- Effects ofFrontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Common microbial signatures in blood and their amplification in clinical disorders.Gut microbes reports · 2025Review
- Progress in the Study of Intratumoral Microorganisms in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.Journal of hepatocellular carcinoma · 2025Review
- Investigation of co-existing bacteria in platelets by employing long-term culturomics and metagenomics.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesInfection remains a leading cause of post-transfusion mortality and morbidity. Bacterial contamination is, however, detected in less than 0.1% of blood units tested. The aim of the study was to identify viable bacteria in standard blood-pack units, with particular focus on bacteria from the oral cavity, and to determine the distribution of bacteria revealed in plasma and in the red blood cell (RBC)-fraction.
designCross-sectional study. Blood were separated into plasma and RBC-suspensions, which were incubated anaerobically or aerobically for 7 days on trypticase soy blood agar (TSA) or blue lactose plates. For identification colony PCR was performed using primers targeting 16S rDNA.
settingBlood donors attending Capital Region Blood Bank, Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, Hvidovre, Denmark, October 29th to December 10th 2013.
participants60 donors (≥50 years old), self-reported medically healthy.
resultsBacterial growth was observed on plates inoculated with plasma or RBCs from 62% of the blood donations. Growth was evident in 21 (35%) of 60 RBC-fractions and in 32 (53%) of 60 plasma-fractions versus 8 of 60 negative controls (p = 0.005 and p = 2.6x10-6, respectively). Propionibacterium acnes was found in 23% of the donations, and Staphylococcus epidermidis in 38%. The majority of bacteria identified in the present study were either facultative anaerobic (59.5%) or anaerobic (27.8%) species, which are not likely to be detected during current routine screening.
conclusionsViable bacteria are present in blood from donors self-reported as medically healthy, indicating that conventional test systems employed by blood banks insufficiently detect bacteria in plasma. Further investigation is needed to determine whether routine testing for anaerobic bacteria and testing of RBC-fractions for adherent bacteria should be recommended.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.