Agglutinins

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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:

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

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