THE INHERITANCE OF BLOOD GROUPS

PBL 2
Tutored by Dr. Gehan Shaker

Inheritance terminology:
1- Phenotype: it’s the inherited trait of the living organism, e.g. A or Rh+.
2- Genotype: it’s the actual genetic information for a trait, e.g. A/A or DD.
3- Dominant gene: A gene is dominant if it is expressed when heterozygous genotype is present
but its allele is not, e.g. BO types as B.
4- Recessive gene: the determined trait on a certain allele will be expressed when the same
allele is located on the other chromosome, e.g. O/O types as O.
5- Co-dominance: the trait determined by the genes on the two chromosomes will be expressed
at the same time so neither is dominant over the other, e.g. A/B types as AB.

Blood classification:
There’re two classified blood group systems that we’re most concerned with which are the ABO and Rh
systems, and this classification depends on the presence or absence of certain substances as antigens
and antibodies.

• The ABO system inheritance is determined by the ABO gene.

The ABO system:

 The ABO system inheritance is determined by the ABO gene present on the long arm of
chromosome 9.
 The surface of RBCs has two distinct antigens which are A and B antigens and their presence or
absence determines the blood group type.
 The most common type is (O+) while the rarest type is (AB+).
 A and B genes are dominant over O and co-dominant to each other.
 Each person inherits a single copy of the ABO gene from a certain parent so there’re six possible
phenotypes and four possible genotypes and they’re:

Genotypes Phenotypes
IAIA and IAIO Blood group (A)
IBIB and IBIO Blood group (B)
IOIO Blood group (O)
IAIB Blood group (AB)
The Rh system:
• The Rh system has 50 antigens, among which the 6 antigens D, d, C, c, E, e are the most
important.
• The Rh system inheritance is determined by the Rh gene which is present on the short arm of
chromosome 1.
• RhD gene is dominant so the person is Rh+ whenever it’s present on one chromosome and the
person is said to be Rh- if it’s absent which is less common, so the possible combination of its
presence and absence is:
1- Rh positive individual could either be homozygous DD or heterozygous Dd.
2- Rh negative individual could only be homozygous recessive dd.