THE COMPETITION OF ABO BLOOD GROUP BINDING ANTIBODIES WITH DIFFERENT SUGARS
By Rushad Malhotra Mukhtyar. Supervisor: Dr. Dan Mitchell. Project Department: Warwick Medical School
INTRODUCTION: Antibody incompatibility is a major obstacle to transplant organ availability and
transplant organ success. Antibodies raised against non-self ABO blood-group sugars attack non self
blood cells, causing an agglutination reaction in the blood vessel(s) that supply the transplanted
organ. This is often fatal, as it precipitates ischaemia that results in transplant organ death.
AIM: The aim of the experiments performed herein was to use different sugars to inhibit the binding
of the ABO blood group antibody anti-B to the ABO blood group B trisaccharide; therefore lending
insight into the binding characteristics of the antibody.
MATERIALS & METHODS: Murine monoclonal anti-human anti-B antibody and human polyclonal
anti-B antibodies were used for the experiments. They were purified via affinity chromatography.
Surface plasmon resonance was used to study the binding of the antibody to its cognate antigen in
the presence of the different sugars. The sugars used were galactose, fucose, mannose and N-acetyl
glucosamine.
RESULTS: Reduction in antibody binding was noted in the presence of high concentrations of all the
sugars. The reduction was greatest (89%) when 500mM galactose was used to compete binding with
human polyclonal antibodies; suggesting that in humans, a large portion of the antibody binding site
is dedicated to recognising and binding galactose.
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