BloodTypeTestingLab

Members

PitchayaAreekarnlert(Petch)111
WaraphanSumetawenunt(Eve)111

Introduction

Blood is a living tissue made up of blood cells suspended in plasma. The cellular
elements of the blood, which contained in a liquid called serum,made up about 45% of the
whole blood. Whilethe plasma, which composed of water 92%, made uptherest55%ofthe
blood. It accounts for about 7% of a persons weight. The most abundant cell found in the
blood is the red blood cell orin a scientific name called erythrocyte. Red blood cell contains
iron which gives it the color ofredandzincthatenableitselfto holdoxygen.Itsalsoactedas
an oxygen and carbon dioxide transporter carrying them to other parts all over the body.
However, there is the protein that attached to the surface of the red blood cell, antigen.
Antigen is presented by the cell under the control of the gene. When the red blood cell gets
matured, it gets rid of its nucleus. The nucleus of the red blood cell is where the
chromosomes are stored, therefore responsible for the gene controls theproducing of these
proteins.So,antigenwillbeleftwhilethegeneisnolongerpresentatacertaintime.
Interestingly that it is this one particular gene in the red blood cell that seems to be
special. Human blood tells us a lot about the owner because of this gene. Sometimes, its
involved in many activities in our routine life more than we have never thought of. The
common eventwefoundinourdailylifeforinstance,thepoliceusedthebloodtofindout who
is the suspect in the eventor the father used the blood in determining that the child is his or
not. Every people will have thegenethatproducestheproteineitherA,B,ornoneat all.This
would classify each person byABO blood groups according to hisor herproteinantigenthat
attached on the surface of red blood cell. People who haveblood typeAwillhaveantigenA.
Those who have antigen B will be B typedandpeoplewhohavebothAand B antigenwillbe
ABtyped.Ifonedoesnthaveanyantigen,thatmeansheorshehasbloodtypeO.
Not only the antigen that the cells blood contained, but the protein which fight the
disease, called antibodies. Antibodies will recognize any foreignmaterials that have entered
the bloodstream.Most likely the same as the immune system that when anyforeigncellsor
virus get into our body, theimmunesystemwillreleasewhiteblood cellto eatthosematerials
up. Then we wont get sick so easily. For the blood type, person who is A typed willcontain
antibody B in the serum, as it hasan antigen A on the red blood cells surface. People who
are B typed will have antibody A. People who are AB typed will havenone and person who
areOtypedwillhaveeitherAandBantibodies.
Its a common sense that everyone knows that person with blood group A can give
their blood to another person with the same blood group.Nonetheless, thats not happen for
all the cases. Sometimes aperson could receive a blood with another typeofbloodgroupor
even donate or give their blood to a person with anothertypeofbloodgroupeither.Aperson

wont beanytroubleifthebloodtheyreceiveddoesnthaveanantibodythatmatcheswith the

antigenthereceiverhas.Ifthebloodapersonreceivedhasanantibodythattheantigencould
fit well, that personwould probably die. So its quite lucky for people with blood type ABthat
they could receiveany blood type. We called this group of people as universalreceivers.On
the opposite site, people with blood type O could receive blood only from a person with the
same blood type. But he or she can donate their bloodto any typeof blood,whichwe called
peoplewithOtypedbloodasuniversaldonors.
People have 23 pairs of chromosomes in their nucleus. All oftheoffspringwillreceive
each chromosome from parents combined as one pair. Gene is a part ofachromosomethat
storesgeneticinformationinordertoproduceaprotein.Apairofchromosomeswiththesame
allele is called homozygous. If the allele is different, it is considered to beheterozygous, for
example, people with AB blood type is heterozygous. Moreover, both A and B alleles are
dominant over Oallele. This caused AB blood type said to be acodominancebecauseboth
AalleleandBallelearedominant.
Interestingly,ourbloodhasmorethantwoallelesin thegenewhichareIA,IB,andi.In
Mendel's studies, he proposed that there are two alleles for every gene. But human gene
didnt fall into that category andconsideredtobehavingmanyallelesinthegene.Sowesaid
that blood gene is having a multiple allele. This doesnt mean that the gene in a particular
individual possesses more than two alleles. Nothing could changethe factthat an individual
can onlyhaveamaximumoftwoofthealleles,one maternalandonepaternal,nomatterhow
many alleles exist inthegene.Theexampleofmultiplealleleratherthanbloodgroupareskin
colorandhaircolor,eventheeyescolorisconsideredtobeamultiplealleletoo.
Therefore, the purpose of this experiment is to determine a persons blood group
which enables us to make a connection and list of the possible parents blood genotype
either. By using the antiA, antiB,and antiAB antibodies drop into the blood and observing
the coagulation. Theexperimentwasbasedonthereactionbetweenantigensandantibodies,
formed a blood clotting. Because a person wont produces an antibody against their own
antigen, otherwiseonewould die. So, its impossible. As if the antibodies are bined perfectly
by antigens, their weight would be heavy as they combined as one. The antibodies and
antigens that are bined will fall down and clump, or we couldsay that its coagulated. Thats
howwedeterminewhichbloodgroupapersonis.
Eventually, thereis also a third antigen, H, on the surface ofbloodthatwouldprevent
the expected blood typetobehappened.Inaspecialcase,anObloodtypechild canbeborn
to parents who dont have the O allele if a recessive form of the allele for theH antigen is
inheritedfrombothparents.

From:http://anthro.palomar.edu/blood/Bombay_pheno.htm

Materials

2MicroscopeSlides
AntiA,B,AB
Markers
Lancets
LancetDevice
Ethanol
CottonBall
3toothpicks

Method

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Draw2circlesof1cmdiameternesttoeachotheroneachslide.
LabelasControlorAntiAorAntiB,orAntiABoneachcircle.
Waitfortheteachertocomeandpuncturethetipofthefinger.
Dropasingledropofbloodoneachcircle.
DontputanyantibodyinControl.
Markthecircleas:
a. AntiA:putonedropofantiA
b. AntiB:putonedropofantiB
c. AntiAB:putonedropofantiAB
7. Mixthebloodandanitbodywiththetoothpick(differenttoothpickforeachdifferent
dropofblood).
8. Leaveitfor10secondsandrecordtheresult.
9. Writedowntheresultonthetableprovided.

Results

Table1:BloodCoagulation

State:Coagulation/NoCoagulation

Control

NoCoagulation

AntiA

NoCoagulation

AntiB

NoCoagulation

AntiAB

NoCoagulation

Picture1:BloodCoagulation

Discussion

It is the fact that not everyone would have got the same bloodtype as same as each
other due to the absence or presence of some protein molecules in human blood which is
antigens and antibodies. People have other combinations ofthese molecules. However, the
blood group that one has depends on what he or shehasinheritedfromtheparents.Ablood
transfusion will occur when the receiver doesnt have antibodies against the donors blood
antigens. Otherwise, if the antibody of the receiver matches with the antigen of the donors
blood,theredbloodcellwillbeclumpandthereceiverwilldie.
In the experimentof blood type testing we did, we used antibodiesdroppingintothebloodto
find for the coagulation, which willappear as the clotting of the bloodon the slide weputon.
Hence,wecouldinterpretwhichphenotypeofapersonblood.
One of us is chosentodoabloodtesting. Petchisthe onewhogotachancetodo,so
we did the experiment using her blood and figure out whather blood phenotype is. We are
looking for the coagulation of the blood on each of the circle. As we could see fromPicture1
which is the result we got, there was no coagulation of the blood visible at all.Her blood on
the slide in each circle that we dropped some antibodies antiA, antiB, and antiAB, has no
blood clump. ThismadeusknowthatPetchsblood groupmustbeOtype.Itisbecausethere
is no antigenattachedtoherredbloodcell, soalltheantibodywedroppedwillmatchnothing.

The reaction wont occur. Thats whyno coagulation of the blood could be perceived on the
slide. Moreover, as Petch has Blood type O, we could assume that her blood genotype is ii.
No Aor B ispresentedonhergene,orelseitwould bedominantovertheOallele.Forfurther
observation,weknewthatPetchsparentshavebloodtypeBandbloodtypeO.Petchsfather
is Btyped blood and Petchs mother is Otype blood. By knowing, the offsprings blood
phenotypeenableustopredictthepossibleparentsbloodgenotype.

Table2:PetchsparentBloodGenotype1
B
I

B
I
i

B
I
i

We have used the punett square to predict her parents blood genotype. The table
above showed the possible blood genotype of Petchs parents that will give birth to a child
with blood type O.Eventhough wedonotknowexactlythathefatherwouldbeheterozygous,
B
B
B
I
i, or homozygous, I
I
, or not, but by looking at Petchs blood genotypewhichshehasiias
blood group O, tellsus that her father must carry i.Ifherfatherishomozygousforbloodtype
B
B, Petch wont have blood type B indeedly because I
will be dominant over i. So her blood
phenotypewillbeBtypedasthetablebelow:

Table3:PetchsparentBloodGenotype2
B
I

B
I

B
I
i

B
I
i

B
I
i

B
I
i

There is no chance forPetch to have blood type O ifyoulookatthetable.Onlyblood

type B is present. So its contradicted to Petchs blood type thatshe has Otyped. Thus, we
could confidentlytell that her father is heterozygous and having blood genotypeasIBiwhen
hermotherisOtypedbloodandcarriesiiasabloodgenotype.
Moving to anotherperson,Eve,didntknowget thebloodtypetesting,sosheprobably
dont know or not sure whather blood group is. However, both Petch and Eve have already
figured out about the blood type of their parents. Even Eve didnt know her phenotypeofher
blood, we could still predict the possible group of her blood type by looking at her parents
blood type and wouldbeabletolistallpossibleEvesbloodtypes.Evesfatherbelongstothe
blood group AB, whichtells us that her fatherhasantigenAandBattachedonthesurfaceof
the red blood cell while he has no antibody in his blood plasma. On the other hand, her
mother has bloodtype O. Eves mombloodwouldhavetoantigenontheredbloodcellatall,
but she does have both A and B antibodies in her blood plasma. From the information we
have, we could know theblood genotype of her parents straight away.Herfathermusthave

A
B
I
I
as a heterozygous gene. Her mother will have ii for her blood genotype and,therefore
considered as a homozygous gene. If using a punett square, wecould clearly see what are
someofthepossiblebloodtypetheiroffspringwouldhave.

Table4:EvesparentBloodGenotype
A
I

B
I

A
I
i

B
I
i

A
I
i

B
I
i

As you could see from thetable of the punett square above,thepossiblebloodgroup

of Eve are A blood type and B blood type. Eve wont belongs to blood group AB for sure
because as she received one allele from her father and another one from her mother, and
A
B
their is not any possibility that she would get either I
or I
from her mother which has blood
group O. Also, Eve wont have blood type O too. Since her father has no allele for O blood
type, i, Eve will have no chance to get both i from her mother and her father. As we can
conclude that Eves blood type would be A type or B type, and the percentage of the
possibilityshewouldhaveeitherAtypeorBtypeis50%

Conclusion

To conclude everything up,ourbloodcontains3differenttypesofallelesintheirgene.

However, the antigen that attached to the surface of the redblood cell is the reason behind
those blood types each person has. If a person has an antigen A, he or she said to be A
typed. The same ideawithpeoplewhohave B bloodtype,theytendtohaveantigen B intheir
blood. But it doesnt mean that every people need to have anantigen in their blood. People
who belongto blood type O do not have any antigen atall,whilepeoplewhobelongtoblood
type AB are having both antigen A and B and those alleles express in the way we called
codominance. Also,thetypeofantigenapersonhascouldnotgoalongwiththesametypeof
antibodies. In human, everyone will have 2 alleles out of 3 alleles represent the genotype of
theblood.
According to the Blood Type Testing Lab, we putantiA, antiB,andantiABinoderto
seethecoagulation.Petchsblooddidntclumpatall,sonocoagulationdidappeartobeseen
during the experiment. Driven from the result, wecouldtellthatPetchsblooddidnthaveany
antigens for antibodies to match with. So that we can determine her bloodtype directly that
shebelongstobloodtypeO.
Moreover, if we know our blood types we can predict our parent blood genotypes.
Since her mother has O and her father has B and A allele and B allele are dominant over O
B
allele, made us comprehend that her father must carry O allele as a heterozygous, I
i.And
lastly, Petchs momishavingiiasherbloodgenotype and thereforeshesalsoahomozygous
too.


Reference

BasicGeneticsfromananimalscienceperspective.(2013,October14).RetrievedMarch
17,2015,from
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/usdagen/mult_alleles.html

BloodTypes.(n.d.).RetrievedMarch16,2015,from
http://www.redcrossblood.org/learnaboutblood/bloodtypes

BLOODTYPING.(n.d.).RetrievedMarch16,2015,from
http://www.biologycorner.com/anatomy/blood/notes_bloodtype.html

GeneticScienceLearningCenter(2014,June22)GenesandBloodType.Learn.Genetics.
RetrievedMarch16,2015,from
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/inheritance/blood/

O'Neil,D.(n.d.).HumanBlood:ABOBloodTypes.RetrievedMarch17,2015,from
http://anthro.palomar.edu/blood/ABO_system.htm

O'Neil,D.(n.d.).ModernHumanVariation:BombayPhenotype.RetrievedMarch16,2015,
from
http://anthro.palomar.edu/blood/Bombay_pheno.htm

Schroeder,M.,&Jensen,M.(n.d.).Life'sBlood.RetrievedMarch17,2015,from
http://faculty.madisoncollege.edu/mljensen/BloodBank/lectures/abo_blood_group_system.htm