Received: 21 July 2020 Revised: 13 December 2020 Accepted: 14 December 2020 DOI: 10.1002/ajh.26078 RESEARCH ARTICLE On the trail of blood doping—microRNA fingerprints to monitor autologous blood transfusions in vivo Veronika Mussack1 | Georg Wittmann2 | Michael W. Pfaffl1 1Animal Physiology and Immunology, School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical Abstract University of Munich, Freising, Germany Autologous blood doping refers to the illegal re-transfusion of any quantities of blood 2 Department for Transfusion Medicine, Cell or blood components with blood donor and recipient being the same person. The re- therapeutics and Haemostaseology, University Hospital LMU, Munich, Germany transfusion of stored erythrocyte concentrates is particularly attractive to high- performance athletes as this practice improves their oxygen capacity excessively. Correspondence Veronika Mussack, Weihenstephaner Berg 3, However, there is still no reliable detection method available. Analyzing circulating 85354 Freising, Germany. microRNA profiles of human subjects that underwent monitored autologous blood Email:
[email protected] transfusions seems to be a highly promising approach to develop novel biomarkers Present address for autologous blood doping. In this exploratory study, we randomly divided Georg Wittmann, Labor Becker & Kollegen MVZ GbR, Munich, Germany 30 healthy males into two different treatment groups and one control group and sampled whole blood at several time points at baseline, after whole blood donation Funding information World Anti-Doping Agency, Grant/Award and after transfusion of erythrocyte concentrates. Hematological variables were Number: ISF15E09MP; Technische Universitat recorded and analyzed following the adaptive model of the Athlete Biological Pass- Munchen port. microRNA profiles were examined by small RNA sequencing and comprehen- sive multivariate data analyses, revealing microRNA fingerprints that reflect the sampling time point and transfusion volume.