Blood Transfus 2007; 5: 44 DOI 10.2450/2007.0008-07 © SIMTI Servizi Srl The D antigen of the Rh blood system is the most important red blood cell antigen determined by a protein, because D-negative individuals are easily anti-D immunised. Individuals, whose cells have a qualitative variation of the D antigen (partial D) lacking one or more components of the D antigen, are said to have a partial...

The Rodin study, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has begun to provide some very important answers to several questions pertinent to the quality and safety of replacement therapy to individuals with haemophilia [1]. Probably the most serious complication of modern haemophilia care is currently the development of alloantibody neutralizing inhibitors and considerable rec...

An infant with severe neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia is described in whom an antibody directed at a new platelet-specific alloantigen, Ca (HPA-6b), is implicated. The new alloantigen is of low frequency in the population and was localized to platelet glycoprotein (GP) IIIa. Immunoprecipitation studies using murine monoclonal antibodies specific for the GP complex IIb-IIIa and GPIIIa alone...

BACKGROUND Holley (Hy) is a high-incidence antigen of the Dombrock blood group system (ISBT 014), present in almost 100% of most populations and more than 99% of Blacks. Since anti-Hy is an extremely rare antibody, data on its clinical relevance and in particular on a possible hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN) are scarce. CASE REPORT The pregnant patient underwent two autologo...

Antibody-mediated immunity is generally accepted to be a major cause of kidney allograft injury and loss. Post-transplantation monitoring for circulating alloantibodies was proposed to represent a useful noninvasive diagnostic approach to assess individual immunologic risks and to guide the implementation of specific therapeutic measures. This was supported by the recent establishment of highly...

Alloantibodies to HLA class I or II and other antigens expressed by endothelium cause a variety of effects on renal transplants, ranging from acute to chronic rejection, and even apparent graft acceptance (accommodation). Recognition of these conditions and appropriate therapy requires demonstration of C4d in biopsies, commonly confirmed by tests for circulating alloantibody. Substantial practi...

Southern blotting was performed with cDNA probes for the human von Willebrand factor (vWF) gene on six patients with severe type 111 von Willebrand’s disease (vWD). A partial deletion in the 3‘ end of the vWF gene was demonstrated in one individual whose parents were related and who had an alloantibody inhibitor to vWF. A resulting novel 2.0-kilobase (kb) EcoRl fragment was used for carrier det...

Haptens can be coupled to mouse immunoglobulin with retention of antibody specificity. Such hapten-coupled alloantibody, when bound to cells, can be bridged to an electron microscopic marker in two ways: (i) by a hybrid antibody, i.e., anti-hapten:anti-marker, and (ii) by untreated bivalent anti-hapten antibody if the marker is also haptenized. Through the use of immunologically non-crossreacti...