Figure 1.

PBMCs of burn and septic patients accumulate hemoglobin. Coomassie-stained and Western analysis of protein extract isolated from PBMCs of patients with burn injury (A) and septic shock (B) showed accumulation of a 15 kDa protein (in comparison to healthy volunteers), identified as hemoglobin. Western blot analysis of PBMCs extract confirmed accumulation of hemoglobin α, β and γ/δ. (C) Expression of hemoglobin α, β and γ/δ was markedly elevated in patients with burn or sepsis at early and later times post admission, in comparison to healthy volunteers. Week 0 represents patient admission day to the hospital (in burn patients) and diagnosis of sepsis (in patients with sepsis). Blood was collected and analyzed 3 wks after admission (burn patients) or 1 wk after diagnosis of sepsis (septic patients). Even though equal protein loading was performed, actin bands were markedly different because in critical illness many proteins (including proteins normally used for loading control, such as actin) can be up-or downregulated. For lanes where no detectable actin lanes were observed, we have utilized an average of the densitometry values of all lanes evaluated for the particular patient population for the densitometry analysis. Data represent mean with ± S.E.M.; n = 6; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.