Presto chango.
Enzymes can convert type A and type B blood type O, which can be transfused to anyone.
Corbis
A new technique can convert type A and type B red blood cells into type O, the "universal donor" blood type that can be transfused for all patients. The advance may help prevent blood shortages
The four types of primary human blood -. A, B, AB and O - resulting from differences in molecules known as antigens dotting the surface of red blood cells and elicit responses of the immune system of the organism. Individuals with type A antigens make antibodies to the type B antigen, which causes the body to attack and reject transfused type B blood as foreign. The same scenario unfolds dark for people who get type B type A blood. Blood type O individuals lacks both antigens and can be transfused safely in people with all four blood types. Type O individuals can receive only O blood type, however, which means that during blood shortages, they may want for blood that was shed to patients with other blood types.
To alleviate type O blood shortages, Henrik Clausen, a glycobiologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and scientists ZymeQuest team, a biotechnology company based in Beverly, Massachusetts, hunted for enzymes that convert other blood types to type O. a and B antigens consist of similar branched carbohydrate molecules that differ in the sugars that cap their tips. The researchers looked for enzymes that snip the sugars off the two antigens without damaging red blood cells. The company had previously isolated a coffee bean enzyme that stripped the B antigen that worked, but too inefficiently. To identify and mass-produce more efficient enzymes, they tested extracts of 2500 kinds of bacteria and fungi. They focused on two enzymes: one from a bacterium that causes infant meningitis, converted type A blood into type O, while another, a human gut bacterium, converted type B type O. (the two enzymes together convert the type AB to type O.)
Each enzyme denuded much of its target antigen from red blood cells that the antigen can not be detected by a test blood group, the Food and Drug administration approved and by subsequent chemical analysis, the researchers reported online yesterday in Nature Biotechnology . ZymeQuest tests the enzyme type A-conversion efficiency in clinical blood and hope to conduct a clinical trial of the B-type enzyme conversion starting later this year, said Clausen.
"I'm impressed" by the study, said scientific transfusion Geoff Daniels of the Bristol Institute of Science transfusion in Bristol, UK Type O blood runs short of time blood is in short supply, Daniels said. If the technology proves safe and effective in humans and financially viable for blood banks, he concludes, in a few years the new enzyme technology "would be able to reduce the pressure on [type] O".
Related Sites
- Facts about blood donation of the American Red Cross
- Background on the blood groups of the National blood Service in the UK
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