B antigen

Transfusion medicine A major blood group–ABO antigen which defines the blood type B, and assumes that the codominant allele at the ABO locus is B or H; B antigens are highly immunogenic; when a B unit of packed red cells is transfused into an A or O recipient, the natural antibodies present in the recipient are capable of evoking a severe or fatal hemolytic transfusion reaction. Cf A antigen, Bombay phenotype, H antigen.

References in periodicals archive

There are multiple antigens, but the ones that are most likely to cause an immune response are the A and B antigens. Blood group A has the A antigen, and blood group B has the B antigen.

Blood groups ..

Moreover, by inserting the cloned genes into type O blood cells -- which have no major blood-type markers, or antigens, of their own -- the scientists then induced these cells to produce the A and B antigens on their surfaces.

Hakomori and his colleagues analyzed the genes associated with the A and B antigens in blood cell lines belonging to the three major blood groups, A, B and O.

The team's success in coaxing O blood cells to produce A and B antigens indicates the potential for one day altering a person's blood type, but that possibility "may be down the pike," says hematologist Elizabeth Read of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md.

Cloning the genes for A and B blood types

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