Blood, Vol. 92 No. 12 (December 15), 1998:
pp. 4836-4843
Characterization of Seven Low Incidence Blood Group Antigens Carried
by Erythrocyte Band 3 Protein
P. Jarolim,
H.L. Rubin,
D. Zakova,
J. Storry, and
M.E. Reid
From the Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; the Institute of Hematology and
Blood Transfusion, Prague, Czech Republic; the Department of Biomedical
Research, St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Tufts University School of
Medicine, Boston, MA; and the Immunohematology Laboratory, New York
Blood Center, New York, NY.
Recent studies have demonstrated that band 3 carries antigens of the
Diego blood group system and have elucidated the molecular basis of
several previously unassigned low incidence and high incidence
antigens. Because the available serological data suggested that band 3 may carry additional low incidence blood group antigens, we screened
band 3 genomic DNA encoding the membrane domain of band 3 for
single-strand conformational polymorphisms. We found that the putative
first ectoplasmic loop of band 3 carries blood group antigen ELO, 432 Arg
Trp; the third putative loop harbors antigens
Vga (Van Vugt), 555 TyrHis, BOW 561 ProSer, Wu (Wulfsberg), 565 GlyAla, and
Bpa (Bishop), 569 AsnLys; and the putative fourth
ectoplasmic loop carries antigens Hga (Hughes), 656 ArgCys, and Moa (Moen), 656 ArgHis. We
studied erythrocytes from carriers of five of these blood group
antigens. We found similar levels of reticulocyte mRNA corresponding to
the two band 3 gene alleles, normal content and glycosylation of band 3 in the red blood cell membrane, and normal band 3-mediated sulfate
influx into red blood cells, suggesting that the mutations do not have
major effect on band 3 structure and function. In addition to
elucidating the molecular basis of seven low incidence blood group
antigens, these results help to create a more accurate structural model
of band 3.
