[Reactivity of monoclonal antibodies as blood grouping reagents]

Many monoclonal antibodies against human red cell surface antigens have been widely utilized in Japan. Especially anti-A, anti-B, and anti-D are used in many clinical laboratories. However, demands of most medical technologists are as follows; the specificity of the monoclonal antibodies are similar or almost same to those of polyclonal ones. Therefore, commercial anti-A or anti-B is manufactured by mixing two or three monoclonal antibodies which react with various A or B antigens including ABO variants. We tested these antibodies as blood grouping reagent for evaluating ABO variants (table 3 and 4). We also evaluated several monoclonal anti-Ds by the use of partial Ds. One of 8 antibodies did not agglutinate with any partial D antigens (table 5). We think that red cells for transfusion to a patient with partial D must be D-negative red cells because we have found anti-D in some patients with partial D who were immunized by transfusion of D-positive red cells.