Flashcards for Human Blood
Topics 2-3:  ABO and Rh Blood Types
(10 cards)

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The man who discovered the ABO blood type system in 1900-1901 at the University of Vienna. Thirty years later, he belatedly received the Nobel Prize for this discovery that explained why blood transfusion sometimes killed the patient receiving them.

Karl Landsteiner
The names of the 4 ABO blood types.
A, B, AB, and O

The names given to the two main antigens responsible for ABO blood types. These antigens provide the signature for blood types.

A and B antigens

The names given to the two main antibodies responsible for rejecting blood of an alien ABO type.

anti-A and anti-B antibodies

The term for people who can donate blood to anyone without the recipients’ blood rejecting it because of ABO type incompatibility. These people have type O blood. Their blood is not rejected by other types of blood because it does not normally have A and B antigens that could potentially mark it as being alien.

universal blood donor

The term for people who can receive blood transfusions from anyone, regardless of the donor’s ABO type. The blood of these fortunate people does not contain antibodies to reject the A and B antigens because the surface of their red blood cells have both of these antigens.

universal blood receiver

The situation in which a mother's blood type is different from that of her unborn child. In the case of some combinations of types, the mother's blood system can produce antibodies to antigens on the surface of the red cells of her fetus resulting in their agglutination.

mother-fetus incompatibility

The names of the two principle Rh blood types.

Rh+ and Rh-

A blood disease of fetuses and newborn infants caused by a mother-fetus Rh blood type incompatibility. Specifically, the mother's anti-Rh+ antibodies agglutinate her infant's Rh+ blood. Symptoms include life threatening anemia, jaundice, fever, swollen tissues from edema, and an enlarged liver and spleen. Serious cases of this condition are treated by fetal blood replacement.

erythroblastosis fetalis

A serum containing anti-Rh+ antibodies given to women at high risk for having a baby with erythroblastosis fetalis (i.e., Rh- women with Rh+ mates).

Rho-GAM