If they can't type an antigen in your blood, what does that mean?

Question

I signed up to become a bone marrow donor - they could only type 5 out of 6 antigens in my blood, what does that mean? Does it lessen the chance of me being a match?

Answer 1

Individuals with the rare Bombay phenotype (hh) do not express substance H (the antigen that defines blood group O) on their red blood cells, and therefore do not agglutinate (bind with) A or B antigens of the ABO blood group system. Instead, they produce antibodies to H substance (which is present on all red cells except those of hh genotype) as well as to both A and B antigens, and are therefore compatible only with other hh donors.

Got this from this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hh_antigen_system

Answer 2

Well, an antigen is really just a protein that is carried on the surface of a cell or bacteria, sort of like a flag. The reason why your immune system reacts to foreign cells is because it doesn't recognize their "flags" as being from your own body. But, when you have type O blood, you have no flags. What that means for you is that you are a universal donor. When your blood enters somebody else's body, their body doesn't recognize it as foreign because it doesn't see ANY flags, foreign or not. Unfortunately for you, that means that you can only accept type O blood, because any other flag would be foreign to your immune system, since it is used to seeing NO flags. Hope that helps.

Answer 3

it means that they do not know what the one type in your blood is. im not sure it lessens the chance of you being a match... everyone is different do you never know... how come you didnt ask them when you went to the clinic or wherever to sign up? just curious. i know sometimes you dont thin of the questions untill afterwards.

Answer 4

We are all works of evolution, one size does not fit all.

Answer 5

it means that you have alien d.n.a. running thur your veins