Does the donor DNA affect the recipient in a blood transfusion?

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When a person gets a blood transfusion, does the DNA in the donor blood affect the recipient?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s there if you get a whole blood transfusion (or some specific non-RBC/platelet cellular product). Does it affect much of anything? Not really. It’s contained in those cells as usual. Some free DNA may act through damage-associated signaling pathways (because DNA *should* be inside cells and if not there’s probably some that died violently) but that’s really no big deal.

Now, if that DNA happens to encode a bunch of foreign antigens that those cells express, it’s another story… but blood banks handle that matching.

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