SCIENCE UPDATE

A special enzyme in your intestines can consume the sugars on the surface of red blood cells. Now, scientists aim to develop and propagate them, so we can all one day donate blood to one another.

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Some 112.5 million portions of blood are donated annually throughout the world, but unfortunately, different patients require different blood types. On the surface of red blood cells of the blood types of A, B, and AB, there are different sugars, also known as antigens. If you receive blood of another type than your own, your immune system will attack the antigens in the blood, and that is potentially lethal. Type 0 is the only one without antigens, and so, it can be given to any recipient and is very popular with blood banks. Now, US scientists have found out how to convert all blood into type 0. The solution is in our intestines, on whose inside you will find sugars that are the spitting images of antigens. The intestines also include bacteria that break them down by means of special enzymes. The bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship with us and help us digest our food, as they are fed sugar from the intestinal wall.

Scientists used the bacteria’s DNA to produce their enzymes in the lab. Subsequently, they let them loose among red blood cells with antigens on them. The enzymes removed antigens 30 times as efficiently as enzymes developed earlier.

All blood donations must be treated separately to reduce the risk of infection, and so, the enzymes must be produced cheaply and in major quantities. The scientists aim to test the enzymes on a large scale and look into the possibility of refining them by selecting and breeding the bacteria that produce the most efficient enzymes.