Summary In this immuno‐electron microscopic study, the capability of the combining antibody and the agglutinability was examined in glutaraldehyde‐fixed erythrocytes. Glutaraldehyde‐fixed human red cells preserved a strong ability to bind specific antibodies as unfixed cells, even though they decrease in agglutinability. As the fixed cells were separated from one another, even when were agglutinating, the localization of antibodies on a cell in the fixed cells was very clear. The number of A antigen sites per red ceil of different phenotypes was estimated individually as each values of single cell but not as mean value of many cells. It was confirmed that the ability of the combining antibody varied greatly from cell to cell in the same blood of umbilical cord.

Using immunoelectron microscopy, the distribution of the H antigen sites on human erythrocytes was observed in 40 samples of adult, newborn and fetal blood of different ABO phenotypes. The attached ferritin particles indicating the H antigen sites conspicuously varied in number from cell to cell in every specimen. The number of H antigen sites per single red cell was estimated on an average for each sample as follows: O, 3 X 10(5); B, 2 X 10(5); A1, 1.5 X 10(5); A1B, 10(5); A2B, 1.5 X 10(5); Ax, 2.5 X 10(5); AxB, 10(5); Bm, 4 X 10(5); Bw(leukemia), 4 X 10(5); O(newborn), 2.5 X 10(5); B(newborn), 3 X 10(5); A1(newborn), 1.5 X 10(5); A1B(newborn), 2 X 10(5); A1B(fetus), 10(5). The cells in each sample were divided into six cell-populatons according to the number of H antigen sites present. The ratios of distribution of such cell populations are compared for all samples.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract