ABO Gene Analysis of Discrepant ABO Blood Group in Blood Donors

Jung, Ok Ju; Kim, Moon Jung; Chung, Hwa Ryung; Lim, A Hyun; Kim, Ji Yeon; Oh, Deok Ja

Abstract

BACKGROUND: An exact ABO blood group is essential for prevention of transfusion accident and safe transfusion therapy. It is known that one of causes of ABO discrepancies is ABO subgroup caused by genetic polymorphism. Therefore, we analyzed ABO genotype of ABO discrepancies in blood donors and studied the distribution and cause of ABO discrepancies.
METHODS
This study examined 118 samples showing ABO discrepancies of ABO blood typing between May 2003 and Dec 2003. ABO genotyping using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP) method was performed on 118 samples. Restriction enzymes including BssH II, Kpn I and Alu I were used for PCR-RFLP.
RESULTS
The genotypes of 118 cases were composed of 43 cases of A/B, 12 cases of A/O, 10 cases of B/O, 1 case of B/B, 37 cases of cis-AB/O, 4 cases of cis-AB/A, 11 cases of cis-AB/B. The genotype of cis-AB/O showed 32 cases with phenotype A2 B3 , 2 cases with phenotype A2 B, 2 cases with phenotype A1 B3 , 1 case with phenotype Ael B. The genotype of cis-AB/B showed 11 cases with phenotype A2 B, and cis-AB/A showed 2 cases with phenotype A2 B3 , 1 case with phenotype A1 Bx and 1 case with phenotype A1 Bel.
CONCLUSION
These data demonstrated that the most frequent genotype of ABO discrepancies in our study is cis-AB. The most predominent phenotype of cis-AB/O is A2 B3 . ABO genotyping is useful in resolving ABO discrepancies, and determination of ABO subgroups.