Can a person with AB+ blood receive blood from a person with O+ blood?

Question

Why or why not? What antibodies might be found in the recipient?

Answer 1

Type O- is the universal donor. Type O+ is the universal donor as long as the recipient has a positive (+) Rh factor, as in the case with AB+. AB+ recipients have anit "A" and anti "B" recognizers. Type O doesnt have anything that AB will recognize as a foreign invader.

Your answer is YES.

Answer 2

The answer is yes. I am an Ex-Air Force Medical Laboratory Technician. If you want to read on, I'll tell you why in an informal scientific way.

When talking about blood transfusions, we need to understand some terminology. The main word we discuss is 'antigen'. It means "to bother". So, if you have something in your blood that would "bother" another person [we are talking antibody reactions in the blood stream], then you would not want to give it to that person.

The are really only two types of blood, A and B. If you put those two together, then you have AB blood. [I know you are asking about O blood. I will get to that in a minute.] What makes these two types separate from eachother? It is the antigens on the blood cells. The antigen is a chemical complex on the outside of the RBC (red blood cell). When this antigen is introduced to a system that thinks the antigen is foreign material, then you will have an antibody/antigen reaction. This is showing that the A antigen can be given to another A antigen person without the immune system thinking that the antigen is foreign. The same is true for B type blood. For this reason, A and B blood is named for the antigen that is on the RBC, not the antibodies in the blood.

O blood does not contain an antigen complex on the RBC. So without an antigen, then the receipent will not have an antibody/antigen reaction. This is why O blood is considered the universal donor (it has no antigens to "bother" another person's immune system)

Now comes another terminology word, "Rh factor". It too is an antigen on the RBC. What does this mean? It is simply an antigen complex which we denote as being positive. We have a term for this called "big D antigen". RBCs with the big D antigen are positive for the big D antigen. RBCs without it are negative for it. So that is what distinguishes positive from negative.

We have to understand that RBCs are named for the antigen it contains. Blood that does not contain A or B antigen is called O " [without A or B] Blood that does not contain the big D antigen are called negative [without big D] or "Rh factor negative". In addition, blood that contains all three antigens is called AB+. The complete lack of any antigen is called O-.

A person with A+ blood will have antibodies that are called "anti-B antibodies" If they are A- they will have antibodies called "anti-b antibodies" AND "anti-big D antibodies". The same principle works for B blood as well.

AB+ blood will have no antibodies against anything because their immune system will not react against any of the antigens. AB- blood will only have antibodies against the big D. So AB+ is the universal receipent.

O blood will have antibodies against both A and B. Of course if you use the same principle with the positive and negative, you can see that O- blood contains antibodies against everything (anti-A, anti-B, anti-big D) That is why O- people cannot be given any different blood than O -. You have to understand though, O- is the univeral donor because it contains no antigens.

I know it may sound a little confusing with all the antigens and antibodies floating around, but you should be aware that the antibodies are taken out blood before it is transfused. It is so that no other antibodies are going to do any havoc in the receipent's system. Being that transfusions are giving RBCs, then the antigen on the RBC must not be something that the receipent is going to fight with their anitbodies.

*****note: RBCs contain MANY more antigens than this. These other antigens present can cause an antibody/antigen reaction even if the same blood type is used. This is why a cross-match is done before giving the receipent a transfusion.

Answer 3

The letter in blood types and the + or - symbol are completely different things: they do not affect each other.
For blood to be compatible, it must be the same type, or one of the generically compatible types. Both O type and - type blood are generically compatible. If a doctor doesn't;t know what type of blood a patient who needs blood is, they will give them O-.
So a person with AB blood can receive O blood without problems.
Also, if the +/- type is the same (+, in this case), the recipient can receive the blood.
So yes, a person with AB+ blood can receive O+ blood.

Answer 4

Yes, that is safe. The person with AB positive has ALL the antibodies so that no matter what antibodies are given to him it won’t bother him, He is the ‘universal recipient’, just like O negative, with no antibodies at all, is the universal donor, whose blood is safe for anybody else to receive.

18 DEC 06, 0225 hrs, GMT.

Answer 5

I am almost positive that the answer is yes. AB blood is the blood that can receive blood from any donor. The receptors on the cells recognize all of the others. O blood cannot be mixed with any other blood other than O blood. O blood basically has no receptors, so it rejects any other blood.

Answer 6

Certainly. Rh compatible, and O has no antibodies to react to. The ABO system can be thought of as the A,B, both, or neither system. In theory the WBC's in the O blood could have a graft-vs.-host reaction, but from a practical view, it's nothing.

Answer 7

Yes, type O blood is the universal donor and type AB is the universal recipient.

Answer 8

Yes. O is the universal donor. Someone with AB+ can receive any type of blood.

You can give O- to anybody, negative or positive. That is why the Red Cross likes me - I am O negative.

Answer 9

Yes. AB+ can receive from anyone, and O+ can donate to any other + blood type. O- can donate to all blood types, but can only receive from an O-.

Answer 10

The phenomenon called blood transfusion, as mentioned by you theoretically it can be done as there are both antigens in blood group AB+ (A and B), those antigens are missing in blood group O+. Apart from that in both there is one more antigen called D antigen contributing for Rh factor.
So theoretically it is possible but I had heard that there are problems in such transfusions.