find out about the important find out about blood groups and their importance
Answers
Answer:
blood is divided into different groups on the basis of antibodies and antigens
Answer:
Explanation:
Antibodies are produced by white blood cells and used by the immune system to identify and attack foreign substances in the body. The ABO classification is the most important and relevant for blood compatibility. A small number of antigens and antibodies are responsible for the ABO blood types.
If you’ve ever needed a blood transfusion, or donated blood, you probably would have been asked your blood type. While it was once thought all blood was the same, we now know there are different types of blood, called blood groups. Transfusions between blood groups can be catastrophic, even deadly, so knowing the blood type of donors and recipients is of the utmost importance.
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.
We’re also classified as positive or negative, based on whether our blood cells carry a protein called the Rhesus D (RhD) antigen. These two blood group systems (ABO and Rh) give us the eight main blood types: O-, O+, B-, B+, A-, A+, AB-, AB+.
How blood groups were discovered?
Transfusion has been practised intermittently since the 1660s. But blood groups weren’t discovered until 1900, before which it was assumed that all blood was of the same type.
This led to some catastrophic transfusions of animal blood into humans in attempts to transfer certain qualities (for example, so the recipient would become meek like a lamb). There were also some fatal transfusions between humans.
For this reason, the practice was banned in the UK and France for more than 100 years.
In 1900, physician Karl Landsteiner’s experiments showed that some people’s red cells “reacted” with plasma samples from other people, while others did not. This led to him describing the ABO system, the most important blood group system and the basis of safe modern transfusion.
After receiving the 1930 Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work, Landsteiner was experimenting with the blood of Rhesus monkeys when he discovered what is now known as the RhD antigen.