Background: Obesity rates have nearly tripled in the past 50 years, and by 2030 more than 1 billion individuals worldwide are projected to be obese. This creates a significant economic strain due to the associated non-communicable diseases. The root cause is an energy expenditure imbalance, owing to an interplay of lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Polymorphic molecules expressed on the surface of certain blood cells are traditionally categorized as blood groups and human platelet or neutrophil antigens. CD36 is widely considered a platelet antigen (Nak) and anti-CD36 can cause foetal/neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) in CD36-negative pregnant women. CD36 is used as a marker of differentiation in early erythroid culture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenetic determinants underlying most human blood groups are now clarified but variation in expression levels remains largely unexplored. By developing a bioinformatics pipeline analyzing GATA1/Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) datasets, we identify 193 potential regulatory sites in 33 blood-group genes. As proof-of-concept, we aimed to delineate the low-expressing complement receptor 1 (CR1) Helgeson phenotype on erythrocytes, which is correlated with several diseases and protects against severe malaria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis spread to humans via ticks or blood transfusions. Severity of malaria is strongly correlated to the ABO blood group of the patient. is an intraerythrocytic parasite with many similarities to malaria, but the impact of ABO on the susceptibility to and progression of the infection in humans is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: The extremely rare Rh phenotype is characterized by the absence of all Rh antigens on erythrocytes. It is divided into the regulator and amorph types based on the underlying genetic background. The more common regulator type depends on critical variants silencing RHAG, which encodes RhAG glycoprotein, necessary for RhD/RhCE expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlasmodium falciparum malaria can cause severe anemia. Even after treatment, hematocrit can decrease. The role of autoantibodies against erythrocytes is not clearly elucidated and how common they are, or what they are directed against, is still largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Under the ISBT, the Working Party (WP) for Red Cell Immunogenetics and Blood Group Terminology is charged with ratifying blood group systems, antigens and alleles. This report presents the outcomes from four WP business meetings, one located in Basel in 2019 and three held as virtual meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Materials And Methods: As in previous meetings, matters pertaining to blood group antigen nomenclature were discussed.
Objective: To evaluate the effect of platelet:erythrocyte (P:E) ratios on Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte invasion.
Background: Recent reports have shown that platelets are directly involved in the immune response towards P. falciparum during erythrocyte invasion.
α-microglobulin (A1M) is a small protein present in vertebrates including humans. It has several physiologically relevant properties, including binding of heme and radicals as well as enzymatic reduction, that are used in the protection of cells and tissue. Research has revealed that A1M can ameliorate heme and ROS-induced injuries in cell cultures, organs, explants and animal models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreeclampsia (PE) is a human specific syndrome with unknown etiology causing maternal and fetal morbidities and mortalities. In PE, maternal inflammatory responses are more exaggerated if the fetus is male than female. Other pregnancy complications such as spontaneous abortions are also more common if the fetus is male.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe clinically important MAM blood group antigen is present on haematopoietic cells of all humans except rare MAM-negative individuals. Its molecular basis is unknown. By whole-exome sequencing we identify EMP3, encoding epithelial membrane protein 3 (EMP3), as a candidate gene, then demonstrate inactivating mutations in ten known MAM-negative individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis update of the Xg blood group system (Johnson NC. XG: The forgotten blood group system. Immunohematology 2011;27:68-71) notes the identification of a cis-regulatory element of both XG and CD99 expression, remarkably by two independent groups during 2018, and confirmed by another in 2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: The Mi(a+) GP(B-A-B) hybrid phenotypes occur with a prevalence of 2%-23% across Southeast Asia. While the s antigen is alleged to be altered, no evidence for specific variants is known. Screening using a monoclonal IgM anti-s mistyped six S-s+ RBC units as S-s-.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring red blood cell (RBC) lysis hemoglobin and heme leak out of the cells and cause damage to the endothelium and nearby tissue. Protective mechanisms exist; however, these systems are not sufficient in diseases with increased extravascular hemolysis e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Vel blood group antigen is carried on the short extracellular segment of the 78-amino-acid-long, type II transmembrane protein SMIM1 of unknown function. Here, using biochemical analysis and flow cytometry of cells expressing wild-type and mutant alleles of SMIM1, we demonstrate that dimerization of SMIM1 promotes cell surface display of the Vel epitope. We show that SMIM1 dimerization is mediated both by an extracellular Cys77-dependent, homomeric disulfide linkage and via a GxxxG helix-helix interaction motif in the transmembrane domain.
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