Using enzymes produced by a bacteria that almost everyone has in their gut, researchers have removed the antigens from red blood cells that determine blood type, putting us within reach of producing universal donor blood.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15069736

Bacterial enzyme strips away blood types to create universal donor blood

“Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Lund University, Sweden, have used enzymes produced by a common gut bacteria to remove the A and B antigens from red blood cells, bringing them one step closer to creating universal donor blood.”

    • prayer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      7 months ago

      Given time, yes. Enzymes are easy to mass produce once development is done with them. For example, Horseradish Peroxidase is used in many biochemical tests in medicine and labwork is an enzyme. It’s manufactured using yeast rather than purifying from horseradish roots, making it very affordable and commonplace in many assays.

      The papers enzyme comes from bacteria living in the human gut, meaning that it should be relatively easy to just grow the bacteria in lab settings and extract the enzymes from that. If it is challenging to grow the bacteria in lab, then they can add the gene from the bacteria into a yeast, like what was done with HRP.