Do you know your blood type? How about the blood type of your parents? Blood type is an inherited trait. Therefore, the blood type of your parents directly impacts what your blood type is.
When we inherit genes we inherit one gene from our mother and one from our father. Therefore you have two alleles (alternate forms of a gene) for blood type. You inherited one allele from your mother and one from your father. The possible alleles that you could inherit are A, B, or O. Additionally, if you know your blood type, you may also know that your blood type can be positive (+) or negative (-), though we'll save discussion about this for another lesson.
Now, before we can understand blood type inheritance we must remember that some genes are dominant and some are recessive. Dominant alleles will mask recessive alleles. In the case of blood type, A and B are both dominant over O. Therefore if you inherit one A or B allele and an O allele, your blood type will be the dominant type (A or B). This also means that the only way for someone to have type O blood, is if they have two O genes.
Two more important terms when discussing inherited traits are phenotype and genotype. A genotype refers to the gene a person inherits, while the phenotype refers to how the traits appear physically. It is possible for a person to have a recessive allele in their genotype but never show that trait in their phenotype. The table below lists all of the possible genotypes and resulting phenotypes for blood types in humans.
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If you know the blood type of two individuals you can easily predict the possible blood types of their children using a Punnett Square. The example below shows a cross between an individual with type A blood (notice this individual carries the recessive O allele) and an individual with type B blood (who also carries the recessive allele).
Remember a Punnett Square shows us all of the possible genotypes of hypothetical children of two individuals. The parents' genotypes are listed on the side and top of the chart and the four genotypes inside the box represent the possible genotypes of the offspring.
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You can see from the resulting Punnett Square that these two individuals can have children with any of the four possible blood phenotypes.
The genes for blood type that you inherit actually code for antigens that will be present on your red blood cells. An antigen is a substance that can trigger an immune response if it is foreign to that individual. The 'A' gene for blood type codes for type A antigen, the 'B' gene codes for B antigens and the O gene codes for no antigens.
Our immune system is trained to recognize foreign substances in our body. Unfamiliar antigens can cause our body to have a reaction in which it tries to destroy these new and unfamiliar cells. This is why it is important that when a person receives blood, that the receiver and the donor have compatible blood types.
For example, if individuals are born with type A blood, their immune systems will not attack blood cells with type A antigens, but any blood with type B antigens could cause an immune reaction. These individuals can safely receive type A blood and type O blood. This is because type O blood does not have either A or B antigens and therefore will not cause an immune reaction. In addition to AB blood, individuals with type AB can receive, Type A, Type B, or Type O blood, because their bodies are familiar with both A and B antigens. The immune system of a person with Type O is not familiar with either A or B proteins and can only receive type O blood.
We inherit our genes for blood type from our parents. We each receive one gene for blood type from our mother and one from our father. The possible versions or alleles of this gene are called A, B, and O. A and B are both dominant alleles and therefore will mask an O allele. For example, if a person inherits an A gene along with an O, then the A will mask the O, and the person's blood type will be Type A. These genes all code for antigens on red blood cells. Antigens are substances in the body that can trigger immune responses.
An individual with type A blood will contain A antigens, type B will contain B antigens, type AB will contain both A and B antigens and type O blood has no antigens. It is important to know your blood type because the antigens present on your blood cells determine which blood types would be compatible to your own.
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