As a young, healthy male, Kwan is a potential blood donor for other gorillas in need. Pam Dennis , veterinary epidemiologist at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, called the study cutting-edge.
All great apes are part of the Species Survival Plan, a program developed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to manage and conserve select or endangered species. Dennis pointed to using blood groups to inform breeding programs at zoos and in situ facilities, because species survival plans rely on maintaining genetic diversity in finite populations.
Another application, Gamble said, is avoiding maternal-fetal incompatibility in breeding attempts. Gamble, who has already received two calls from colleagues facing potential transfusion situations, said this research serves as an important jumping off point for further knowledge.
This story originally appeared in Medill Reports, from Northwestern University. Skip to content. By Sarah V. It is known that some diseases have been transmitted by this route. For this reason any person who has ever been bitten by a non-human primate is not allowed to donate. Non-human primates include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, monkeys old and new world , tarsiers, lemurs and lorises.
Anyone who has been in unusual contact with a bat, such as handling a sick or injured bat, should be considered at risk of rabies. Bat bites are usually insignificant and easily overlooked. Merely being in a place where bats roost is not considered a risk. Rabies, and similar diseases, have long incubation periods and do not show as a wound infection. Work with blood and non-human primates goes back to Karl Landsteiner, who not only co-discovered the rhesus factor in monkeys in , but also discovered the ABO groups in The blood group commonality between humans and other animals thus is not a new revelation, but this raises question of why xenotransfusion was not seriously decades ago.
One reason is because, despite ABO and Rh commonality, there are minor differences between the blood of humans, apes, and other animals whose effects on transfusion would have to be understood completely. Humans also may still have some lingering superstitions about blood from non-humans that make xenotransfusion unpalatable.
Also, when it comes to great apes, they are endangered. So, even while it might be no more trouble for an ape to donate blood than for a hen to lay eggs, the supply of ape blood would be fairly small anyway.
The size of red blood cells is similar. So is the typical red blood cell life span, the hemoglobin content and structure, and other factors, plus pigs can be genetically modified to produce red blood cells that are equivalent to human type O negative.
Very relevant to the discussion is the question of whether, or to what degree, we even need alternatives to human blood donors. Although there are frequent blood shortages, especially in summer, although the total amount of needed blood has been increasing because the population is growing along with the number of sophisticated surgical procedures like organ transplants and coronary artery bypass surgery CABG that often require many units of packed red blood cells PRBCs and other blood products , the amount of blood consumed per capita may actually be starting to decline.
That is because efficiency with blood products has increased, due to technological advances for storing blood and getting what we need from it. The system has gained a great deal of specificity. Another factor that leads to blood shortages involves blood group compatibility. Blood products have a limited storage time before they must be discarded, the proportion of donors versus recipients is not the same for every blood group, and blood groups vary among populations.
For these reasons, the very existence of the blood groups reduces efficiency of blood product utilization. It depends only on a couple of sugars at the ends of chain-like molecules that stick out from the red blood cell surface. Type A antigens have one type of sugar at the end of the chain, Type B antigens have a slightly different sugar at the end of the chain.
People with AB blood have both antigens on their cells while those cell of blood type O still have the surface molecules, but without either of those sugars at the end that cause so much trouble in a person who receives the wrong blood.
Simply snip off those terminal sugars and any donated blood becomes type O. It works with an enzyme that does the snipping but until recently the process has been incomplete and expensive. The immune system is exquisitely sensitive to ABO antigens, which means if a type A or B blood is converted to give to a type O recipient, the conversion really has to be complete.
With new biotechnology procedures, it now looks as though the ability to to make full conversion of human A, B, or AB blood to type O is just around the corner, and that might be a lot easier than doing it with blood from pigs.
Plus, there is another solution around the corner that could make all of the discussion about alternative donors, whether human, ape, or pig, obsolete: synthetic blood.
Just make what we need from scratch, then there are no antigens to worry about, human or otherwise. But these non-human animals do constitute a potential alternative source of blood products, if ever the moment comes where they are needed. David Warmflash is an astrobiologist, physician and science writer. Follow CosmicEvolution to read what he is saying on Twitter. The GLP featured this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.
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