Japanese Red Cross Society

In Japan, remote areas have limited access to medical care due to geographical constraints. Additionally, some regions, although not classified as remote areas, have limited transfusion capacity because of their distance from blood centers. These are referred to as transfusion-access remote areas (t-remote areas). This study aimed to clarify transfusion practices in these regions.

A questionnaire was distributed in November 2024 to clinics located in remote areas and to clinics and hospitals in t-remote areas.

The questionnaire response rate was 35 % (290/823 clinics) in remote areas and 49 % (211/427 facilities) in t-remote areas. The median emergency transport time from blood centers to t-remote facilities was 70 min. Red blood cells were used in 3.1 % of remote area clinics, 87 % of t-remote area clinics, and 99 % of t-remote area hospitals. Emergency transfusions were performed in 0.3 %, 17 %, and 55 % of these facilities, respectively. Clinics generally transferred patients to other hospitals, whereas 67 % of t-remote area hospitals managed emergencies on-site. Blood products were not stored in clinics, whereas 36 % of t-remote area hospitals maintained red cell inventories, and 22 % requested blood rotation systems. Interfacility transfers were reported in 0.3 % of remote area clinics and approximately 6 % of t-remote area facilities, with about 20 % expressing a need for such a system. Fresh whole-blood transfusion was rare.

Overall, transfusion practices in remote area clinics were limited. In contrast, some t-remote area medical facilities require improved infrastructure to meet emergency transfusion demands.

Basophils are the rarest granulocytes and play diverse roles, e.g., in protective immunity and allergic inflammatory reactions. However, the underlying molecules and mechanisms involved in basophil differentiation and functions, particularly in humans, remain largely unknown. This may be due to the lack of high-quality research tools.

We established a novel, immortalized, human basophil cell line by introducing human papillomavirus 16-E6/E7, c-MYC, and BCL-xL gene expression systems into cultured basophils, and evaluated whether this cell line is useful as a research tool, compared with KU812, which is the most commonly-used human basophil cell line.

This cell line expressed various basophil markers, including CD123, CD203c, and the high-affinity immunoglobulin (Ig)E receptor α-chain and can mature into more differentiated cells under specific culture conditions. The differentiated cells stimulated with anti-IgE antibodies showed increased CD203c expression in a dose-dependent manner, whereas the differentiated KU812 cells showed little activation after the stimulation. The established cell line also demonstrated increased sensitivity to allergic activation when stimulated with an allergen (NP-BSA) and allergen-specific IgE (anti-NP-IgE). Furthermore, histamine- and interleukin-4-releasing abilities were also confirmed. These allergic activation profiles were similar to those of basophils from healthy individuals, although the activation levels of the established cells were lower than those of basophils from highly-sensitive individuals.

These findings suggest that the established basophil cell line has substantially different characteristics from a conventional cell line and could serve as a new tool for investigating basophil differentiation and functions, as well as for testing allergic reactions.