40 years ago, a rare set of blood types were seen for the first time in humans, thanks to the loss of a pair of newborn babies.
A new study could hopefully prevent tragedies in the future by unraveling the identity of the Er system.
The simple red blood cell can still surprise us even after all the research has been done.
Blood typing shows the presence and absence of sugars in our red blood cells. Our body uses cell surface antigens as identification markers to separate ourselves from harmful invaders.
Thanks to their importance in matching blood transfusions, the ABO and rhesus factor are the most well-known of the blood groups. There are many different blood group systems based on a wide variety of cell surface antigens and their variant.
In the early 20th century, most of the major ones were identified, but a late-comer to the collection, called Er, only popped onto our radar in 1982. Er b was identified six years after it was first identified. The absence of Er a and Er b was described by the code Er3
Too little is known about the impact of the blood cell antigens.
Our immune system attacks suspect-antigen-bearing cells when they show up in a blood cell, because our body doesn't classify them as our own. If the unborn baby has a mismatch between their mother's blood type and their own, the mother's immune system can be affected. The hemolytic disease in the unborn baby can be traced back to the response generated in response.
Injections for pregnant mothers and blood transfusions for the babies are some of the ways in which newborn hemolytic disease can be prevented.
One of the cases mentioned in the study had a blood transfusion fail to save the child's life, suggesting that something wasn't right.
Nicole Thornton is a serologist from the UK's National Health Service Blood and transplant. There is a patient with a problem that we are trying to solve.
Over the years, we've seen hints of these rare antibodies, but their rareness made it hard to understand them.
The blood of 13 patients was analyzed by Thornton and colleagues. There are five variations of the Er antigens, the known variant Er a, Er b, Er3 and two new ones Er 4 and Er5.
Crew and his team were able to identify the genes that code for the cell surface. The PIEZO1 is familiar to medical science and was surprising.
The red cell uses prostaglandins to sense when it is being squeezed.
Several diseases are associated with the genes. Those that have the gene deleted in their red blood cells end up with overhydrated and fragile blood cells because they die before they are born.
The crew and team deleted PIEZO1 in a cell line of erythroblasts to confirm their findings. PIEZO1 needs to be added to the cell's surface.
The researchers suspect that the Er5 variant may have an advantage against Malaria due to it's rare blood types.
Toye says that there are only a few hundred copies of theProtein in each cell. The study shows that even very lowly expressed genes can be relevant for transfusion medicine.
The research was published in a journal.
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