Why people with O-Negative blood can only receive O-Negative blood?

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Why people with O-Negative blood can only receive O-Negative blood?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

To sum it up, different blood types have different amounts of cells that they can bond to; antigens & antibodies.

O-Negative does not have A&B antigens, which means they can’t bond with type O.

There’s a bit more too it, but that’s the basic idea.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s not only the A & B antigens. O- people are also unable to accept O+ blood because it’s missing the Rh factor or D antigen. O- is also known as Rh negative

Apart from the four major blood groups, A, B, AB and O, there is another surface antigen called D or Rh, the presence or absence of which makes a blood group positive or negative – these are known as sub-types or sub-groups.

O- is the universal donor as the absence of all three surface antigens (A, B, and D) makes it the least capable of arousing an immunological reaction in the recipient, whatever the blood group of the recipient might be.

Since the positive groups are much larger in the general population, among the positive groups, O+ is as good as universal donor. However, O+ cannot be given to a person who is Rh negative as the anti-D antibodies in the recipient will react with the transfused O+ blood.

Edit: Since you are O- will you consider donating blood? The blood bank is constantly low on O-Negative. It’s the red blood cells that is most use during emergencies when there is literally no time to test the patient for his blood type. They will just grab O negative Red blood cells and transfuse.