Enzyme pathway in human gut microbiome that converts A to universal O type blood

https://naturemicrobiologycommunity.nature.com/users/261113-peter-rahfeld/posts/49635-an-enzymatic-pathway-in-the-human-gut-microbiome-that-converts-a-to-universal-o-type-blood

by occamschainsaw • 7 years ago

150 18 7 years ago

naturemicrobiologycommunity.nature.com

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

Full paper: http://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0469-7.

canada_dry• 7 years ago

"Blood types are differentiated by the kinds of sugar found on the surface of red blood cells. Type O has no sugars. Scientists had realized that some (gut) enzymes can remove the sugars from A, B and AB blood cells, turning them into Type O"

A superbly concise overview taken from another news article.

mabbo• 7 years ago

I'm not very strong on biology, but does this mean, potentially, all blood can be converted to universal donor blood? That would be truly revolutionary.

est31• 7 years ago

The discovery only touches the ABO group system. While the ABO group system is the most important one, there are over 36 blood group systems. The Rh blood group system is important, too: If a Rh(D) negative person gets Rh(D) positive blood for the first time, it works but they can develop antibodies for it and if they get such blood a second time, they can get major issues.

In fact, there are more people (and thus potential donors) with type O blood than there are people with Rh negative blood.

Conversion of type A and B to type O blood is a key step, but it alone doesn't enable creation of fully universal donor blood (yet).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_blood_group_systems

rscho2• 7 years ago

It would still massively increase emergency storage, though.

Just that would be a major management improvement!

JamesBarney• 7 years ago

How much more valuable is O- blood donation than your typical donation?

Curious because some writers suggest it's probably better to work and donate the proceeds than take the time to donate blood but they didn't go specifically into my blood type(O-).

oedmarap• 7 years ago

Great timing of this article given that tomorrow (Jun 14) is World Blood Donor Day.

300bps• 7 years ago

Red Cross has an amazingly informative site on blood type:

https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-types.html

sthgrau• 7 years ago

I wonder if this is to allow safe digestion/absorption of blood types that might otherwise cause rejection problems.

hirenj2• 7 years ago

It's likely there for either bacterial warfare, or degradation/metabolism of the mucus layer in the gut (or both).

hirenj2• 7 years ago

The whole ABO system really hints at just how tricky prediction of activity from amino acid sequence is.

The transferase that puts the A (GalNAc) or B (Galactose) sugar on switches specificity at the slightest hint of a sequence variation.

Look at the two enzymes found in this paper - one was classified as a CBM (i.e. only that it bound sugars) and the other in a family that primarily removes galactose.

As an aside, you have to appreciate this genomic arrangement where the bacteria are helpful enough to put all the genes needed to do one job (in this case break down blood antigen) in one place. That way, if you know what one thing does, you can jump to conclusions about what the others do (e.g. see a recent paper by Crouch et al).

Final point - if you are wondering where the hell we pick up antibodies to the different blood type antigens so early, if I remember correctly, it's because we develop antibodies to bacteria that ALSO have the blood type antigens.

Glycobiology is insanely cool.

apathy• 7 years ago

Posts like yours are the reason I come here. Great stuff. And yes glycoPTMs are insane.

anigbrowl• 7 years ago

Microbiology is wild. I don't think I'd have the patience to work in the field but it's like an endless number of sequels to Fantastic Voyage.

Enzyme pathway in human gut microbiome that converts A to universal O type blood

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