Novel analytical strategies in transplantology – a chance to increase the pool of organs?


Barbara Bojko, Department Of Pharmacodynamics And Molecular Pharmacology Faculty Of Pharmacy, Collegium Medicum In Bydgoszcz Nicolaus Copernicus University In Torun, Bydgoszcz, Poland (bbojko@cm.umk.pl)

For most of patients with end-stage organ failure transplantation is the only life-saving procedure. Since the discovery of anti-rejection drugs the number of transplantations has increased exponentially. However, there are still tremendous problems that modern transplantology has to face: (1) severe shortage of donor grafts, and (2) lack of reliable methods of organ quality assessment prior to transplantation, just to name a few. With regards to the analytical tools, which would enable better assessment of organ quality, there are recent attempts to find new biomarkers of graft dysfunction. The studies of organ quality are innumerous, primarily due to the invasiveness related to the collection of tissue sample for the analysis and lack of appropriate analytical method allowing bedside analysis.

In the present project we undertake the challenge to address the need for new analytical solution for graft quality assessment and propose to perform a series of metabolomics and lipidomics analyses using novel diagnostic protocol based on low-invasive method – solid phase microextraction (SPME) combining sampling, sample preparation and clean-up with metabolite extraction, and coupled to liquid chromatography - high resolution mass spectrometry platform (LC-HRMS). The sampling has been performed several times using the microprobe coated with 7 mm extraction phase. The statistical analysis enabled to observe changes in organ metabolic profile induced by ischemia and oxidative stress as well as influence of the preservation process on kidney obtained from heart-beating and living donors. The most pronounced changes during time of ischemia were reflected in the level of nucleosides. Among the metabolites discriminating organs originating from living and heart beating donors and exhibited preventive effect on the ischemia-reperfusion kidney was carnitine. Also, the significant differences in cysteine level between the two groups after organs reperfusion were observed. The applied preservation protocol resulted in progressive changes of pantothenic acid and methionine levels among others.

The study demonstrated that the proposed approach may be successfully used for monitoring alterations of grafts prior transplantation as well as for evaluation of organ status subjected to given preservation protocol. Further investigations will involve larger cohort to verify if the metabolites showing significance in the current study can be considered as biomarkers of kidney quality (progressing ischemia or successful recovery) and optimization of rapid method for targeted analysis on-site.

Acknowledgment: the study was supported by grant Opus UMO-2017/27/B/NZ5/01013 from National Science Centre. The authors want to thank Thermo Fisher Scientific for the access to Q-Exactive Focus orbitrap mass spectrometer


Abstract Reference & Short Personal Biography of Presenting Author

Dr. Barbara Bojko studied laboratory medicine at the Medical University of Silesia (Poland), where she received her Master’s degree in 2001 and Ph.D. degree in pharmaceutical sciences in 2005. The same year she became an Assistant Professor at the same university and in 2009 she joined Prof. Pawliszyn group at University of Waterloo (Canada), initially as a Postdoctoral Fellow and later, in 2012, Research Associate. In 2014, she completed her Habilitation (D.Sc.) at Medical University of Gdańsk (Poland) and became an Associate Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University (Poland), where she established her research group. She is an author  and co-author of about 90 scientific articles (H-index 27) and a few book chapters. She was awarded several times for her scientific and organizational achievements by Polish Minister of Health, Presidents of Medical University of Silesia, Nicolaus Copernicus University and Medical University of Gdansk, as well as a distinction from the Mayor of City of Bydgoszcz. Her research is focused on utilization of microextraction and microsampling technologies to various clinical and pharmaceutical applications with particular interest in translational medicine and low invasive tissue analysis for oncology and transplantation.

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