Alterations of Blood Group Receptors of Erythrocytes in Leukemia — Immunofluorescence Studies

Abstract

Alterations of blood group receptors in the course of leukemia have been observed for the first time in 1957 by van Loghem et al (7). Thereafter, many authors have reported modifications of all the antigens of the ABO system (A, B, H) as well as certain other blood group systems (Rh,I etc), as reviewed by Salmon (15) and Májský (8). Accordingly, the modifications of blood group receptors seem to occur mostly in patients with myeloblasts leukemia but have also been observed in the course of lymphoblastic and eosinophilic leukemia. Systematical investigations in children with leukemia have not been reported so far. All these results were obtained with agglutination reactions, absorption and elution experiments. ABH receptors on single erythrocytes could not be detected with these serological methods. Therefore, we developed an indirect immunofluorescence technique for the demonstration of blood group receptors on blood smears (4, 10, 13). In comparison with agglutination techniques the advantages of our own method are: 1) demonstration of quantitative variations of receptors on single erythrocytes which allows differentiation of two types of modification of the weakened ABH receptors. 2) detection of very small red cell populations (below 5–10 96) which are antigenetically different from the majority of erythrocytes. Furthermore, the specifity of fluorescence is ideally monitored with the simultaneous control, that is an arteficial mixture of positively and negatively reacting red cells which are examined under the same conditions.

Supported by “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”