What Are Blood Groups And Their Importance?

Blood groups are a classification of the blood in a body that is based on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells. These antigens can come in a number of forms, namely carbohydrates, proteins, glycoproteins and glycolipids. The ones that are there depend on the blood group system.

These red blood cell surface antigens can stem from one allele and together they form a blood group system.  A person's blood group is inherited from their parents and represent contributions from both the mother and the father. The International Society of Blood Transfusion have classified a total of 30 human blood groups. It is important to have blood groups, in a medical sense, to aid successful blood transfusions.

Certain people with certain blood groups can only accept blood from the same system, others have blood groups that can be accepted by most humans. Classifying blood allows hospitals to keep a supply of each group from donors ready for any transfusions that may need it. Blood donors are a crucial part to this system and although thousands of people donate blood, there is still a short supply of some of the rarer groups.

Blood group systems are categorized by two sub systems. These are the ABO blood group system and the Rh blood group system. The ABO blood group system is the most important blood group system regarding human blood transfusion. The associated anti A and anti B antibodies are usually Immunoglobin M. These antibodies are produced in the first few years of life be sensitization to a variety of foods, bacteria and viruses.

The Rh blood group system is the second most important blood group system for human blood transfusion. The most prominent antigen is the D antigen as it is the most likely to provoke an immune system response from the other five antigens.

An individual's blood differs from that of the other due to types of substances on the red blood sells. These substances are called antigens. We also know that there are antibodies in our plasma. These antibodies do not react to our own tissues but react with antigens on the red blood cells of another person. Thus we can group people on the basis of their antigens and antibodies into four groups: A, B, O and AB. People whose blood is A have antigen A and carry antibody B. group B people have antigen B and antibody A. group O people don not have either antigen A or antigen B. but both antibodies are present.

When blood is given to the patient (blood transfusion), it will be dangerous if the recipient patient gets blood with antigen against which he has antibodies. This will clump the red blood cells, transfused from the donor, the person who gives blood. This is a serious reaction. Thus it is vitally important to know blood groups of both the donor and the recipient belongs to group A, he will not be able to receive blood from group B donors. In this case, which blood groups can be safely received? Same blood groups can be transferred.

The two main groups are the ABo and the rhesus systems. Before blood groups were understood many people died after receiving a blood donation because of incompatibility.      In the ABo system o is the universal donor and AB is the universal recipient. A cannot go into B and   B cannot go into A.         In the rhesus   system , neg can go into positive but positive cannot go into negative. So without all this knowledge, we could not have blood transfusions, organ transfusions or many other tests such as testing for fatherhood and forensics.

Importance of blood grouping?

Blood group are the substance which are present on the surface of the Rbcs and mainly depend upon the presence and absence of inherited antiges.
Antigens are mainly protein ,carbohydrate, glycoprotein and gylcolipid.
Importance of blood group mainly in Blood trasfusion,in HDn.blood product, plasma compatibility etc.

Importance of blood group a

A+ married O+

Blood groups differ

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