find about blood groups and their importance in short
Answers
Answer:
Our bodies contain trillions of red blood cells. Each is covered in an array of proteins and sugars, inherited from our parents, which determine our blood group. We can all be classified into group A, B, AB or O, based on which sugars coat our red blood cells.
Explanation:
What are blood groups for?
It is likely all of the molecules that cover the surface of cells serve some purpose – often completely unrelated to transfusion.
One of the 36 blood group systems mentioned above is the Colton blood group. This is interesting because the molecules recognised by the immune system as Colton blood group antigens are actually located on an aquaporin (AQP1) molecule - one of a family of molecules responsible for water passage into and out of cells, and abundant in the red cell membrane. Professor Peter Agre and colleagues described this in 1992 and he received a Nobel Prize for this work.
Another interesting example is the Duffy protein, named after a haemophiliac patient Mr Duffy. In 1950, he developed an antibody to what we know today as the Duffy “a” antigen, to which he had been exposed by receiving a blood transfusion.
One of the known functions of the Duffy antigens is binding one type of malaria parasite, Plasmodium vivax, which grants it entry into the red cell, where it can multiply and then cause the cell to burst.
The red cells of people who lack Duffy antigens are more resistant to infection by this parasite. More than two-thirds of people of African origin lack the Duffy antigens, whereas it is rare for people originating from Europe or Asia to do so.
Many thousands of years ago, in Africa where the Plasmodium vivax-bearing mosquitoes flourished, people who lacked Duffy antigens were resistant to this potentially fatal form of malaria and survived to parent future generations, passing on this particular resilience to their offspring.
Fascinatingly, the normal function of ABO and Rh, the two most important blood group systems, is still essentially unknown. The frequency of ABO antigens varies greatly between different populations, and so it is thought that perhaps particular ABO blood types confers survival advantage in different settings.
Different ABO blood types occur more frequently in some medical conditions. Stomach ulcers, for example, are more common in those with group O blood but stomach cancer is more common in those with group A blood. We don’t really know exactly why this occurs, or its consequences.
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