General Serum Repository and General Leukocyte/Plasma Repository (GSR/GLPR)

Objectives

To provide researchers with an opportunity to conduct studies on a large representative sample of blood donors with linked demographic data and donation test results. Targeted investigations on particular subsets of the donor population are also feasible due to the availability of this linked data.

Background

The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (REDS) has been conducted since 1989. One of the aims of this study is to establish blood specimen repositories for future testing. Two major repositories of anonymized specimens were established under this study: the General Serum Respository (GSR) and the General Leukocyte and Plasma Repository (GLPR). The GSR and GLPR repositories have already been used to investigate HHV-8 antibody prevalence in the US blood supply (1) and polymorphisms in chemokine receptor genes (2). An example of a targeted investigation is the study examining antibody prevalence to the causative agent of Chagas disease in donors born in endemic countries (3).

Subjects

The GSR was collected between 1991 and 1994 and consists of serum from 508,151 blood donations. The GLPR was collected in 1994 and 1995 and consists of aliquots of plasma, and whole blood frozen, with or without DMSO, obtained from 147,915 blood donations.

Design

Specimens for both the GSR and the GLPR repositories were collected according to a statistical sampling plan, designed to obtain donations that are representative of all donor racial/ethnic groups. REDS blood centers that have contributed to the GSR and GLPR repositories include: the American Red Cross (ARC) Greater Chesapeake and Potomac (Baltimore, MD; and Washington, DC), Southeastern Michigan (Detroit, MI), and Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) regions; the Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP; San Francisco, CA); and the Oklahoma Blood Institute (Oklahoma City, OK). Donor screening and testing was performed according to standard operating procedures and included tests for anti-HIV (types 1 and 2 after March 1992), anti-HCV, anti-HTLV, HBsAg and anti-HBc; serologic testing for syphilis and testing for ALT levels (4).

Publications

1. Pellett PE, et al. (2003) Multicenter comparison of serologic assays and estimation of human herpesvirus 8 seroprevalence among US blood donors. Transfusion 43(9):1260-1268.
2. Mariani R, et al. (1999) CCR2-64I polymorphism is not associated with altered CCR5 expression or coreceptor function. (Translated from eng) J Virol 73(3):2450-2459.
3. Williams A (1996) Prevalence of T. cruzi antibodies in US blood donors born in Chagas' endemic areas. in 23rd International Meeting of Basic Research in Chagas Disease. Cazambu, Brazil.
4. Zuck TF, et al. (1995) The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (REDS): rationale and methods. (Translated from eng) Transfusion 35(11):944-951.

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