Thanks to their recent analysis of blood samples taken from sepsis and COVID-19 patients, the researchers now know that the number of receptors, specifically TLR9, increases during infections.
"Right now when patients in the ICU [intensive care unit] become anemic, which is almost all of our critically ill patients, the standard is to give them blood transfusions, which has long been known to be accompanied by a host of issues including acute lung injury and increased risk of death," says Mangalmurti."Now that we know more about the mechanism of anemia, it allows us to look at new therapies for treating acute inflammatory anemia without transfusions, such as blocking TLR9 on the red blood cells."