Hemagglutination, or haemagglutination, is a specific form of

agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative la ...

that involves

red blood cell Red blood cells (RBCs), also referred to as red cells, red blood corpuscles (in humans or other animals not having nucleus in red blood cells), haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek ''erythros'' for "red" and ''kytos'' for "hol ...

s (RBCs). It has two common uses in the laboratory: blood typing and the quantification of virus dilutions in a

haemagglutination assay The hemagglutination assay or haemagglutination assay (HA) and the hemagglutination inhibition assay (HI or HAI) were developed in 1941–42 by American virologist George Hirst as methods for quantifying the relative concentration of viruses, ba ...

Blood typing

Blood type can be determined by using

antibodies An antibody (Ab), also known as an immunoglobulin (Ig), is a large, Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique molecule of ...

that bind to the A or B blood group

antigen In immunology, an antigen (Ag) is a molecule or molecular structure or any foreign particulate matter or a pollen grain that can bind to a specific antibody or T-cell receptor. The presence of antigens in the body may trigger an immune respon ...

s in a sample of blood. For example, if antibodies that bind the A blood group are added and agglutination occurs, the blood is either type A or type AB. To determine between type A or type AB, antibodies that bind the B group are added and if agglutination does not occur, the blood is type A. If agglutination does not occur with either antibodies that bind to type A or type B antigens, then neither antigen is present on the blood cells, which means the blood is type O. In blood grouping, the patient's serum is tested against RBCs of known blood groups and also the patient's RBCs are tested against known serum types. In this way the patient's blood group is confirmed from both RBCs and serum. A direct

Coombs test A Coombs test, also known as antiglobulin test (AGT), is either of two blood tests used in immunohematology. They are the direct and indirect Coombs tests. The direct Coombs test detects antibodies that are stuck to the surface of the red blood c ...

is also done on the patient's blood sample in case there are any confounding antibodies.

Viral hemagglutination assay

Many viruses attach to molecules present on the surface of RBCs. A consequence of this is that at certain concentrations, a viral suspension may bind together (agglutinate) the RBCs, thus preventing them from settling out of suspension. Since agglutination is not linked to infectivity, attenuated viruses can therefore be used in

assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...

s while an additional assay such as a

plaque assay Virus quantification involves counting the number of viruses in a specific volume to determine the virus concentration. It is used in both research and development (R&D) in commercial and academic laboratories as well as production situations whe ...

must be used to determine infectivity. By serially diluting a virus suspension into an assay tray (a series of wells of uniform volume) and adding a standard amount of blood cells, an estimation of the number of virus particles can be made. While less accurate than a

, it is cheaper and quicker (taking just 30 minutes). This assay may be modified to include the addition of an antiserum. By using a standard amount of virus, a standard amount of blood cells, and serially diluting the

antiserum Antiserum is a blood serum containing monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies that is used to spread passive immunity to many diseases via blood donation (plasmapheresis). For example, convalescent serum, passive antibody transfusion from a previous ...

, one can identify the concentration of the antiserum (the greatest dilution which inhibits hemagglutination).

References

External links

* {{Authority control Hematology Immunologic tests