Preparation and use of synthetic blood group specific immunoadsorbents

The carbohydrate structures determining the ABO blood group system have been almost completely characterized. Recent advances in the stereoselective synthesis of such complex structures have made it possible to prepare pure oligosaccharides in large quantities and to study their possible uses for diagnostics and pharmaceutical processing techniques. In the experiments described here A and B blood group specific determinants were synthesized and bound to solid phases by means of suitable spacers in order to study their use as immunoadsorbents. The objective was to adsorb blood group specific antibodies from positive sera and from immunoglobulin preparations. It was shown that the anti-A and anti-B antibodies bound to the immunoadsorbents with high affinity could be removed effectively. The effects were achieved both using affinity chromatography and "batch processing".