Animal blood in translational research: How to adjust animal blood viscosity to the human standard

Abstract

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The crux of time: A meta-analysis of ex vivo whole blood degradation

“…Our meta-analysis suggests near uniformity in effect sizes related to the class of biomolecule studied, analytical technique used to measure degradation, the temperature the bloodstain was aged in, and the type of blood source used. While differences exist in the molecular properties of mammalian blood sources (Windberger et al, 2003;Kim et al, 2016;Kapusta et al, 2017;Windberger, 2019;Sparer et al, 2020;Ecker et al, 2021;Farré et al, 2021), the findings of our meta-analysis suggest that they share similar timewise physicochemical degradation pathways of the biomolecules. This leads to a first key takeaway: most readily available mammal blood sources can be used as a human blood substitute in proof-of-concept TSD studies.…”

“…Moreover, addition of anticoagulants allows for important experimental flexibility, mirrors human properties (Sparer et al, 2020;Orr et al, 2021) and in at least one TSD study, had minimal effect on the recorded metrics ( (Elliott et al, 2022) but see (Bergmann et al, 2021)). While a variety of suitable mammal alternatives exist (Windberger et al, 2003;Ecker et al, 2021;Orr et al, 2021) and would facilitate expanded TSD research, we still recommend that for integration into forensic casework, experimentation with human blood will be required for validation.…”

The crux of time: A meta-analysis of ex vivo whole blood degradation

“…Our meta-analysis suggests near uniformity in effect sizes related to the class of biomolecule studied, analytical technique used to measure degradation, the temperature the bloodstain was aged in, and the type of blood source used. While differences exist in the molecular properties of mammalian blood sources [99][100][101][102][103][104][105] , the findings of our meta-analysis suggest that they do not appear to hamper the timewise physicochemical degradation pathways of the biomolecules. This leads to a first key takeaway: most readily available mammal blood sources can be used as a human blood substitute in proof-of-concept TSD studies.…”

“…Moreover, addition of anticoagulants allows for important experimental flexibility, mirrors human properties 106 and in at least one TSD study, had minimal effect on the recorded metrics ( 107 but see 17 ). While a variety of suitable mammal alternatives exist 106,108 and would facilitate expanded TSD research, we still recommend that for integration into forensic casework, human blood will be required for validation.…”

Cow Blood - A Superior Storage Option in Forensics?

“…Native animal whole blood can be a better option, but it is crucial that the animal species is well described in terms of deviations from a human standard and that the withdrawn blood is of good quality. Animal blood differs from human blood concerning its mechanical behavior; e.g., whole horse blood is inappropriate to simulate human blood and should be generally avoided, and sheep and pig blood compares to human blood only at distinct shear rate ranges [1]. This is due to the different nature of red blood cells (RBC) between species and the quality of their embedding in plasma, leading to a species specific blood viscosity [2].…”