Agglutinins
In medicine, agglutinins (from Latin: agglutinare “to attach”) are used as a generic term for proteins that clump with cells or corpuscular elements ( agglutination ) and therefore form aggregates. The term hemagglutinin is sometimes used synonymously for historical reasons , but it only describes the clumping of proteins with red blood cells ( hemagglutination ). In contrast to the agglutination of agglutinins and cells, protein aggregation describes the clumping of proteins, while precipitation describes the clumping of antibodies . Agglutinins can be determined using agglutination tests, e.g. B. in a Gruber-Widal reaction .
Specific agglutins are:
- Agglutinins for triggering biochemical reactions, see lectins
- Agglutinins for classification in bacteriology, see Kauffmann-White scheme
- Agglutinins in the blood, see hemagglutination , blood group and crossmatch (medicine)
- Agglutinins in the blood that only clump together at low temperatures, see cold agglutinins
- Agglutinins of influenza virus A, see hemagglutinin (influenza virus A)
- Agglutinins in medical diagnostics
history
The specific agglutination reaction was discovered in 1896 by Herbert Edward Durham and Max von Gruber and called the Gruber-Durham reaction . In the same year, with the Gruber-Widal reaction, this was put into practical use in medical diagnostics, after Fernand Widal discovered the clumping of the sera of typhoid sufferers when cultures of the typhoid pathogen were added. In 1900 Karl Landsteiner discovered hemagglutination in blood mixtures of different blood groups , which led to the elucidation of the AB0 system .
literature
- Charles Janeway et al .: Immunobiology . 6th edition ISBN 0815341016 . The 5th English edition is available online on the pages of the NCBI Bookshelf (online) .