Scientists have discovered a new blood type after 50 years of research
Kyiv • UNN
50 years after a pregnant woman was found to have a rare blood type without the AnWj antigen, scientists have identified a new blood group system, MAL. This discovery is of great importance in helping patients with rare blood types.
When a pregnant woman had her blood tested in 1972, doctors discovered that it mysteriously lacked a surface molecule that was found on all other red blood cells known at the time. 50 years later, this strange molecular absence finally led researchers from the UK and Israel to describe a new system of blood groups in humans, UNN reports with reference to Science Alert.
Details
According to scientists, this discovery is a real scientific breakthrough.
This is a huge achievement and the culmination of a long team effort to finally create this new blood group system and be able to offer the best care to rare but important patients,
The publication notes that while we are all more familiar with the ABO blood group system and the Rh factor (that's plus or minus), people actually have many different blood group systems that are based on a wide range of cell surface proteins and sugars that cover our blood cells.
Our bodies use these antigen molecules, among other purposes, as identification markers to separate "self" from potentially harmful "non-self". If these markers do not match during a blood transfusion, such a life-saving tactic can cause a reaction or even end in death,
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They point out that most major blood groups were identified in the early 20th century. Many groups discovered since then, such as the Er blood system, first described by researchers in 2022, affect only a small number of people. This also applies to the new blood type.
The work was difficult because genetic cases are very rare,
Previous studies have shown that more than 99.9 percent of people have the AnWj antigen, which was not present in the blood of the 1972 patient. This antigen lives on myelin and lymphocyte protein, which led researchers to name the newly described system the MAL blood group.
MAL is a very small protein with some interesting properties that made it difficult to identify, and that meant we needed to conduct several lines of research to accumulate the evidence needed to create this blood group system,
It is known that the MAL protein plays a vital role in maintaining the stability of cell membranes and promoting cell movement. Moreover, previous studies have shown that AnWj is not actually present in newborns, but appears shortly after birth.
"Interestingly, all AnWj-negative patients included in the study had the same mutation. However, no other cellular abnormalities or diseases associated with this mutation were found," the publication concludes.
Let us remind you
Recently, an international group of scientists discovered that blood donors are more likely to have beneficial mutations in the DNMT3A gene. Blood loss stimulates the production of erythropoietin, which improves blood levels after blood loss.
