{"id":95285,"date":"2019-08-25T20:42:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T03:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/an-enzymatic-pathway-in-the-human-gut-microbiome-that-converts-a-to-universal-o-type-blood"},"modified":"2019-08-25T20:42:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T03:42:31","slug":"an-enzymatic-pathway-in-the-human-gut-microbiome-that-converts-a-to-universal-o-type-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/an-enzymatic-pathway-in-the-human-gut-microbiome-that-converts-a-to-universal-o-type-blood","title":{"rendered":"An enzymatic pathway in the human gut microbiome that converts A to universal O type blood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/an-enzymatic-pathway-in-the-human-gut-microbiome-that-converts-a-to-universal-o-type-blood.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Science<\/i> has officially broadened the blood supply:<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Access to efficient enzymes that can convert A and B type red blood cells to \u2018universal\u2019 donor O would greatly increase the supply of blood for transfusions. Here we report the functional metagenomic screening of the human gut microbiome for enzymes that can remove the cognate A and B type sugar antigens. Among the genes encoded in our library of 19,500 expressed fosmids bearing gut bacterial DNA, we identify an enzyme pair from the obligate anaerobe <i>Flavonifractor plautii<\/i> that work in concert to efficiently convert the A antigen to the H antigen of O type blood, via a galactosamine intermediate. The X-ray structure of the <i>N<\/i>-acetylgalactosamine deacetylase reveals the active site and mechanism of the founding member of an esterase family. The galactosaminidase expands activities within the CAZy family GH36. Their ability to completely convert A to O of the same rhesus type at very low enzyme concentrations in whole blood will simplify their incorporation into blood transfusion practice, broadening blood supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science has officially broadened the blood supply: Access to efficient enzymes that can convert A and B type red blood cells to \u2018universal\u2019 donor O would greatly increase the supply of blood for transfusions. Here we report the functional metagenomic screening of the human gut microbiome for enzymes that can remove the cognate A and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}