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Monday, October 12, 2009

Why don't the DONOR antibodies react AGAINST the RECIPIENTS blood cell proteins??

Talking about blood only not organs
like when type O blood is given to a type A person, lets say, why dont the O antibodies clog up the protiens on the recipients cells??
Answer:
I think u misinterpret what is antibody and antigen and the transfer of blood to another type of person... lets use a small example:
if u have blood A, anything other than A is considered to be BAD for your body, and how do ur body know it is A or not, since they are all blood cells??
this is how they know it, they tag your blood with A antigen, and send out B antibodies ( antibodies is like a soldier, searching for B antigen to kill )... by doing this, they dont kill A, bc they only look out for B antigen..
O is universal donor because they dont have antigen (tag) at ALL.. therefore, ur B-antibodies cant kill it bc they cant locate it...
AB = universal acceptor, bc they have no antibodies for A or B at all.. but they have both A and B antigens..
"If two different blood types are mixed together, the blood cells may begin to clump together in the blood vessels, causing a potentially fatal situation. Therefore, it is important that blood types be matched before blood transfusions take place. In an emergency, type O blood can be given because it is most likely to be accepted by all blood types."
they are inactive or grossly outnumbered...even if they try to there are infinitely more of the recipients cells.
donor doesn't attack. It only gets attacked.
It does go both ways. Antibodies present in the patients serum can attack the donor red blood cells, and antibodies in the donor serum can attack the patient's red blood cells. The reason you don't worry about the antibodies from the donor is that whole blood is virtually never given to a patient. Instead, the red blood cells are separated from the plasma (which contains the antibodies) and the patient receives just the red cells. This is also why you hear about patients being given a unit of packed red cells instead of a unit of blood.

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