DNA...What happens when you are given a transfusion with someone else's blood, that contains their DNA?

Question

Does the other person's DNA just float around inside you? What would that do to you, having someone else's DNA in you. I am just curious. I know its a stupid question, but I have been thinking about it.

Answer 1

Blood is composed of four main elements: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. And, indeed, white blood cells do contain DNA. However, most blood transfusions involve only red blood cells, which do not contain DNA. And even in a rare whole blood transfusion, no traces of foreign DNA from the white blood cells have been detected in a recipient's blood.

On the other hand, there is at least one situation in which a transplant can change your DNA. After a bone marrow transplant, the DNA in a blood sample may actually reflect the donor rather than the recipient. That's because in this case, blood stem cells are transferred. The recipient will produce blood that contains the donor's cellular elements but almost none of his or her own DNA.

Answer 2

There are a number of blood products that can be given to patients. The most common, and the one that most people think about when they say "transfusion" is "Packed Red Blood Cells" or PRBCs. A unit of PRBCs is taken from a single donor, tested for infectious disease, and is then prepared by removing the blood plasma (liquid portion of the blood that is not made of cells). The resulting "packed" cells are suspended in solution. Normal blood is about 35 to 45% cells by volume, and a unit of PRBC's is about twice as dense as that.

Red blood cells have no nucleus. During their formation in the bone marrow, the nucleus is destroyed. Soon after they are released into the blood stream, all remaining DNA is gone. Red cells are just bags of oxygen carrying protein structures called hemoglobin.

Units of PRBCs are not entirely devoid of nucleated cells, though. Some leukocytes (white blood cells - elements of the immune system) are present. Transfused white cells actually attack the patient, because they don't "know" that they've been transfused into someone else. They just touch up against the patient, detect that what they are touching is something alien, and attack it. For the most part, PRBC units are depleted in white blood cells, but in some cases the patient is too sick to withstand even this, and they need to be given special transfusions of "leukopoor" PRBCs which are specially cleansed of white cells or "irradiated" PRBCs in which the white cells are killed.

Whatever type of transfusion is received, the white cells have a limited life span. These are "terminally differentiated cells" meaning that they are no longer the precursor cell type which multiplies (those cells, located in the bone marrow, are a type of stem cell). The effect on the patient of this foriegn cell is transient. Eventually all the transfused cells are gone, even the red cells.

The real problem with transfusion isn't that there is foriegn DNA, instead, its the foriegn cells themselves which are coated in foriegn cell surface proteins. These surface proteins are how the patient's body recognizes that the transfused cells are not made by the patient. If the patient has not had transfusions before, then it can be very simple to get a (mostly) compatible unit of blood to transfuse them with. However, many people have illnesses which make them sick enough to need blood transfusions many times over their lifetime, and those patients develop high levels of immunity against blood transfusions. It can be very difficult to find blood that they won't react to. In an emergency situation, this can be deadly.

In a transfusion reaction, the body detects that the transfused blood cells are not made by the patient. It then destroys these foriegn cells on contact. The destruction of the cells occurs throughout the blood stream and the broken cells release all their interior material. The patient can become rapidly very ill, even critically ill. A mild reaction will lead to fever, generalized swelling, and large quantities of hemoglobin being lost in the urine - which looks like blood in the urine. A massive reaction will shut down the lungs and kidneys, release dangerous amounts of potassium which may affect the heart... a massive transfusion reaction can kill.

Answer 3

Commingling of the platelets ... comes to mind, huh? I found some interesting references that may be of interest. Let's see if a A+ recipient with straight hair, blue eyes, and a medical history of heart disease receives a donation via transfusion from a O+ donor with curly hair, brown eyes, and a medical history of hyperthyroidism...will the recipient's hair hold a permanent wave solution better than ever before?!

Only her hair dresser knows for sure......

Answer 4

aboslutely nothing will happen........the only thing that can happen when given a transfusion is that the wrong blood type and wrong RH factor are given, if that occurs then your cells go into lyses

Answer 5

Nothing... you have other peoples DNA in you already, think about how far back to the dawn of time your roots go.