Blood type.Compatibility and inheritability.
By Damián Serrano Martínez.
It is likely that much of us have ever wondered what type
of blood we have, what does it mean and why.Surely for interest when donating blood or receiving it, due to the need for compatibility.
In humans, the blood group can be A, B, AB or 0, and also differentiate in their RH and can be positive or negative.A total of eight blood types.
Which means that blood is A, B, AB or 0 is the existence or non -existence (in the case of group 0) of antigens on the extracellular surface of the red blood cell, being an antigen as an “identification card” of the blood cellsred towards the person's immune system.If this does not recognize the antigen (of group 0 by not presenting antigen does not possess this problem) the immune system will attack those strange red blood cells for him.
For example, a person with a blood group A will be compatible with another of group A and Group 0.A person from the AB group will be compatible with anyone since it recognizes both antigens, and one of group 0 only with those of Group 0.
But this is not entirely true, since we must also add the RH factor, positive or negative, which also indicates the presence of another antigen, positive if it is, negative if not.Resulting that blood groups with positive RH are compatible with the positive and negative RH RH, and the negative RHs only with themselves with themselves.
We can already complete the previous example.If our blood group is A+, we can receive blood from groups A+, A-, 0+ and 0-.But if it is A- we can only receive from the A- and 0- groups.From this it is extracted that the universal donor is group 0- and the universal receiver the AB+ group.
Our blood group is determined by our genes, inherited from our parents.A gene with three alleles (A, B or 0) is the one that determines our group.But our genome is formed by couples of genes, so the case of the blood group is determined by a gene of our father and another of our mother.Of these alleles, A and B are dominant, and 0 is recessive.
This means that if our genotype (genes) is A0, our phenotype (gene expression) will be to.And if the genotype is AB due to codominance the phenotype will be ab.
Then group A people, genotypically they could be AA or A0, the B would be B0 or BB, 0 only 00 and AB would present a paternal allele A and another B.
An example, if we have a father B (BB) and a mother A (A0), his offspring could be AB or B (B0).Another example of a father A (AO) and a mother B (BO) could have offspring AB, A (A0), B (B0) and 0 (00).This is the result of the combination of one of the two genes of the father with one of the two of the mother.
The inheritance of the RH factor is more complicated and presents several theories that we will not get to discuss.
As a curiosity, knowing that in Spain the proportion of each group would be: A+ 35%, A- 7%, 0+ 36%, 0-9%, B+ 7%, B-2%, AB+ 3%, and AB - 1%.
A striking fact is that the origin of allele B comes from the plains of Mongolia, where it has been found in greater proportion.Also, as noted to highlight, in countries like Japan (with a very distributed proportion of blood type) it is common in the curriculum to ask the blood group since they associate it with personality characteristics.There are even diets based on the blood group such as those of James and Peter D’Edamo.
Compatibility table:
In addition, here I leave a page that delves into this subject.
