The Effect of Composol Medium on Mir-16 Expression During Platelet Storage Up To Day 7 At Room Temperature

Objective: micrornas (mirnas) are short, noncoding rnas that play vital roles in gene regulation. it has been shown that storage has an effect on platelet mirnas. mir-16 is highly expressed in platelets and it appears to target the genes involved in cell death. it has been shown that platelets could be stored in composol for a longer period of time. the aim of the present study was to assess and compare the expression pattern of mir-16 in platelet concentrates (pcs) in plasma and composol media. materials and methods: in an experimental study, ten pc bags were collected and each bag was divided into two separate bags, one with the 70% composol and the other with only plasma. both bags were stored for 7 days at 22˚c and tested on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 of storage. for each sample, we performed quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qrt-pcr). the water-soluble tetrazolium salt-1 (wst-1) test was used to assess platelet viability in all of the samples. statistical analysis was done by spss and rest software. a p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: mir-16 was significantly elevated during the storage days, with fold changes of 3.47 (plasma) and 2.77 (composol). the composol group had significantly decreased mir-16 expression compared with the plasma group. results of the wst-1 test showed less decrease in optical density (od) in the composol group (0.93 ± 0.4) during the storage days compared with the plasma group (0.75 ± 0.3). conclusion: our finding supported results from previous studies that reported an increase in mir-16 expression during platelet storage. in addition, mir-16 down-regulation in composol medium implied that composol might be a good solution for long-term platelet storage because it has the potential to elevate the shelf-life of platelets stored at 22˚c.