TY - JOUR

T1 - Secretor status of blood group O mothers is associated with development of ABO haemolytic disease in the newborn

AU - Krog, Grethe Risum

AU - Lorenzen, Henriette

AU - Clausen, Frederik Banch

AU - Dziegiel, Morten Hanefeld

N1 - Funding Information: We wish to thank Mette Line Donneborg, Bo Mølholm Hansen, Kristian Vestergaard Jensen, Per Albertsen, Finn Ebbesen, Thomas Bergholt and Steen Axel Hertel for recruiting the participants. This work was supported by a grant from Rigshospitalet and dbio's Research Foundations. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Vox Sanguinis published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Society of Blood Transfusion.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Background and Objectives: Identification of antibody characteristics and genetics underlying the development of maternal anti-A/B linked to inducing haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn could contribute to the development of screening methods predicting pregnancies at risk with high diagnostic accuracy. Materials and Methods: We examined 73 samples from mothers to 37 newborns with haemolysis (cases) and 36 without (controls). The secretor status was determined by genotyping a single nucleotide polymorphism in FUT2, rs601338 (c.428G>A). Results: We found a significant association between secretor mothers and newborns developing haemolysis (p = 0.028). However, stratifying by the newborn's blood group, the association was found only in secretor mothers to blood group B newborns (p = 0.032). In fact, only secretor mothers were found in this group. By including antibody data from a previous study, we found higher median semi-quantitative levels of IgG1 and IgG3 among secretor mothers than non-secretor mothers to newborns with and without haemolysis. Conclusion: We found that the maternal secretor status is associated with the production of anti-A/B, pathogenic to ABO-incompatible newborns. We suggest that secretors experience hyper-immunizing events more frequently than non-secretors, leading to the production of pathogenic ABO antibodies, especially anti-B.

AB - Background and Objectives: Identification of antibody characteristics and genetics underlying the development of maternal anti-A/B linked to inducing haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn could contribute to the development of screening methods predicting pregnancies at risk with high diagnostic accuracy. Materials and Methods: We examined 73 samples from mothers to 37 newborns with haemolysis (cases) and 36 without (controls). The secretor status was determined by genotyping a single nucleotide polymorphism in FUT2, rs601338 (c.428G>A). Results: We found a significant association between secretor mothers and newborns developing haemolysis (p = 0.028). However, stratifying by the newborn's blood group, the association was found only in secretor mothers to blood group B newborns (p = 0.032). In fact, only secretor mothers were found in this group. By including antibody data from a previous study, we found higher median semi-quantitative levels of IgG1 and IgG3 among secretor mothers than non-secretor mothers to newborns with and without haemolysis. Conclusion: We found that the maternal secretor status is associated with the production of anti-A/B, pathogenic to ABO-incompatible newborns. We suggest that secretors experience hyper-immunizing events more frequently than non-secretors, leading to the production of pathogenic ABO antibodies, especially anti-B.

KW - ABO

KW - ABO-antibodies

KW - FUT2

KW - haemolysis

KW - HFDN

KW - secretor

U2 - 10.1111/vox.13420

DO - 10.1111/vox.13420

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36896479

AN - SCOPUS:85150525737

VL - 118

SP - 402

EP - 406

JO - Vox Sanguinis

JF - Vox Sanguinis

SN - 0042-9007

IS - 5

ER -