8 Alternative clearance pathways

This assignment should give you some exposure to newly discovered pathways that may have a role in the clearance of platelets in ITP.

8.1 Readings

  1. Michelson
  • p.51, the introduction, and p. 60, from Glycosylation and Platelet Clearance
  1. Li et al. Desialylation is a mechanism of Fc-independent platelet clearance and a therapeutic target in immune thrombocytopenia. Nature Communications (2015), 6;7737.
  • Read the abstract
  • Go to the method section at the end of the manuscript. Read the section concerning Patients and on the next page the section In vitro platelet-antibody assays from Human platelets … until responsiveness before measurements.
  1. Olsson et al. T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity toward platelets in chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Nature Medicine (2003), 9(9):1123–1124.
  • read the abstract and first part of the paper until destruction by cell-mediated mechanisms.
  • study at Figure 2, making use of the figure caption

8.2 Exercises

  • List the platelet glycoproteins that you know and their functions (don’t look this up)
  • Make a drawing of the desialylation-clearance pathway as you understand it. Make it as abstract or specific as you like.
  • Draw the T cell clearance pathway as you understand it.