Abstract
Observations are described of the incidence among Caucasians and Negroes of the blood factors Rh A, Rh B and Rh C which occur associated with the Rh 0 factor in typical Rh-positive blood. The antiserums used for the tests were derived from Rh-positive patients who had had hemolytic transfusion reactions or erythroblastotic babies. Among a large series of individuals, it was found that only rarely is any of the blood factors Rh A, Rh B, or Rh C lacking from "standard" Rh 0-positive blood. On the other hand, about half of the specimens of Rh 0 variant blood lack one or more of the factors Rh A, Rh B, and Rh C, which, when present in such blood, are also almost always variants. Judging from the incidence of specimens lacking one or more of these factors, Rh A, Rh B, and Rh B appear to be relatively independent of one another despite their association with blood factor Rh 0. Tests for factors Rh A, Rh B, and Rh C distinguish new rare varieties of Rh and ℜh agglutinogens, each genetically determined by corresponding allelic genes. There is no doubt that more clinical cases will be found in which sensitized Rh-positive individuals have antibodies resembling anti-Rh 0 in specificity. Four such cases have already been studied by the present authors, and in each case the antibodies were shown to be different from anti-Rh 0 in specificity. Since they were also different from one another, they have been assigned the symbols anti-Rh A, anti-Rh B, anti-Rh C, and anti-Rh D, respectively, the first three being the antiserums used in the present study. Obviously, in order to avoid confusion of nomenclature, the specificity of antiserums from other similar cases will have to be compared with anti-Rh A, anti-Rh B, anti-Rh C, and anti-Rh D and shown to be different from all four, as well as anti-Rh 0, before a distinctive symbol is assigned to them.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (891.4 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- ARGALL C. I., BALL J. M., TRENTELMAN E. Presence of anti-D antibody in the serum of a Du patient. J Lab Clin Med. 1953 Jun;41(6):895–898. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- OWEN R. D. Heterogeneity of antibodies to the human blood groups in normal and immune sera. J Immunol. 1954 Jul;73(1):29–39. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- UNGER L. J., WIENER A. S. Some observations on blood factors RhA, RhB and RhC of the Rh-Hr blood group system. Blood. 1959 May;14(5):522–534. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- UNGER L. J., WIENER A. S., WEINER L. New antibody (anti-RhB) resulting from blood transfusion in an Rh-positive patient. J Am Med Assoc. 1959 Jul 18;170(12):1380–1383. doi: 10.1001/jama.1959.03010120016005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- WIENER A. S., GEIGER J., GORDON E. B. Mosaic nature of the Rho factor of human blood. Exp Med Surg. 1957;15(1):75–82. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- WIENER A. S., OWEN R. D., STORMONT C., WEXLER B. Medicolegal applications of blood-grouping tests. J Am Med Assoc. 1957 Aug 31;164(18):2036–2044. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- WIENER A. S., UNGER L. J. Rh factors related to the Rho factor as a source of clinical problems; diagrammatic representation of their reactions and prediction of still undiscovered Rh factors. J Am Med Assoc. 1959 Feb 14;169(7):696–699. doi: 10.1001/jama.1959.03000240034008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]