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Antigens and Blood Typing

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April 27, 2018

Introduction

The blood is one of the most critical substances within our body. It mainly functions for

the regulation, transportation, and protection of the body. Specifically, without it the nutrients

and resources needed by each part of the body would not be transported from their sources

towards the interstitial spaces, which leads to the failure of their functioning. This result would

also be the same given that the waste from these spaces would not be transported through the

blood towards adjacent systems that expels them out of the body (i.e. excretory system). Aside

from this, another important function of the blood is the protection of the body from harmful

microorganisms (e.g. pathogens) which are trying to inflict harm in the body’s cells.

Nevertheless, because of the Y-shaped Glycoproteins called Antibodies that functions as

identifiers and eliminators of pathogens most of the harmful organisms are destroyed early on

within the system. However, despite the critical nature of the blood in our survival, it must be

noted that its roles and functions are not as easy as it sounds like. In fact, it would only be during

the 1940s when Karl Landsteiner would discover the ABO blood types (and later the Rh Blood

type), which would be of critical importance for saving the lives of many from the fatal results of

a faulty blood transfusion (Gautam, Mittal, Singh, Srivastava, & Verma, 2017). Nevertheless,

what is surprising in his discovery was that the very structures which keeps us alive (e.g.

antibodies) are also the main reason, why a lot of blood transfusions tend to kill the patient

instead of saving them. Thus, his discovery concluded that transfusing blood to another patient

must undergo a thorough examination of its characteristics (e.g. blood type and Rh factor) before

doing so. In order to further understand this, an experiment from the “The Blood Typing” was

done on how to transfuse blood from one patient to the other. All in all, the author of this article
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believes that as practitioners, understanding blood types thoroughly is important to deal with

matters of emergencies that could mean life and death.

Material List

No Materials are needed for this experiment

Methodology

In order to complete the experiment, the researchers were prompted to complete the game

entitled “The Blood Transfusion Game”. Specifically, it would require the player to correctly

identify the blood types by mixing the blood collected with three reagents containing A, B, and

Rh antibodies. Consequently, the reaction from mixing blood with these three would how the

patient’s blood type. Lastly, by the end of the simulation, a transfusion would then be required,

requiring an analysis of both the compatible blood type and the quantity of blood needed.

Results

Presented below are the results for the Blood Typing Game

Mission Test Tube “A” Test Tube “B” Test Tube Resulting

# “Rh” Blood Type

1 agglutination None agglutination A Rh+

2 agglutination None None A Rh-

3 None None agglutination O Rh+

4 None None agglutination O Rh+

5 agglutination None None A Rh-

6 agglutination agglutination agglutination AB Rh+

Discussion

In the blood typing game, the reaction between particular blood types based on the ABO

and the RH+ classifications were shown. Particularly, the results showed that a blood type that is

similar with the reagent to which it is added on shows signs of “agglutination” or clumping. This

goes the same for the Rh classification where an agglutination means Rh+ and non-agglutination

refers to Rh-. An example of this from the table above is the type A blood that agglutinated when

added in the reagent A. All in all, by adding a specific blood to both the A and B reagents, the

specific blood type could be deduced based on their reaction. However, while this part of the

game showed how to determine the blood type based on testing it with reagents, its main

importance was emphasized during the part of the game where the blood is transfused to the

patient. In that portion, a failure to determine one’s blood type shows that it is fatal for the

patient. In retrospect to the experiment, this is because transfusing similar blood types instead of

“compatible” ones would usually cause agglutination, which could then affect its mobility (Then,

Li, McLiesh, Shen, & Garnier, 2015). This is the reason why the blood in those samples that

agglutinated tend to condense in the bottom, instead of being diffused all over the sample.

Conclusion:
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All in all, the experiment and the discussion above shows how important it is for

practitioners to have a knowledge about how to categorize blood types. On one hand, the

experiment shows that improper blood typing could cause agglutination in the patient’s blood,

which is fatal as it reduces the mobility of RBCs. On the other hand, however, it also shows how

to make sure that the correct distinctions based on a simple method of testing it with available

reagents. Following from the table however, it shows that statistically, the type O Rh- are most

compatible for transfusion for almost every type of blood. Thus, this is the reason why in

emergencies, this blood type is also the one being transfused until proper blood typing and

transfusion of the correct blood type is done.

References

Gautam, A., Mittal, N., Singh, T. B., Srivastava, R., & Verma, P. K. (2017). Correlation of ABO

blood group phenotype and rhesus factor with periodontal disease: An observational

study. . Contemporary clinical dentistry, 8(2), 253.

Then, W. L., Li, M., McLiesh, H., Shen, W., & Garnier, G. (2015). The detection of blood group

phenotypes using paper diagnostics. Vox sanguinis, 108(2), 186-196.