People with eccentric atomic number 8 blood might not be the only “ universal donors ” for much longer , concord to new research showing that gut bacteria can be used to commute A and B blood type into O lineage . AsNewsweekreports , this discovery could ply a potentially lifespan - saving serving to people who urgently need parentage transfusions in the consequence that O blood is n’t promptly useable .
Steve Withers of the University of British Colombia is presenting the research this week at the American Chemical Society ( ACS ) internal meeting . For each of the four blood types , different sugars are present on the outside of red blood cells . The resistant organisation identifies these sugars asantigens , which can ruin cells and cause an hypersensitive response if they’renot compatiblewith the transfusion recipient ’s pedigree type . Because eccentric O roue has no antigens , it can be accepted by everyone .
Withers found that enzymes from one ’s intestine bacteria — specificallyE. coli — could be used to rust away at the antigens attached to A and B blood cells , thus transmute them into O cell .
As the ACS TV below explains , “ The researchers homed in on the enzymes the bacteria expend to plunk the sugars off and found a raw family of enzymes that are 30 times more in effect at removing red bloodline electric cell dinero than antecedently reported candidates . ”
premature enquiry has taken a similar approach , but until now , scientists have been unable to discover the right enzymes to fulfil the task safely and economically , accord to Withers .
Withers is now working with confrere to validate these findings in hopes of potentially rolling them out in a clinical setting . “ Of naturally , it will have to go through lot of clinical trials to verify that it does n’t have any adverse consequence , but it is looking very hopeful , ” Withers said in astatement .
[ h / tNewsweek ]
