Development and Secretion of the Blood Group Factor O in the Newborn

Summary

The development of the property O in the newborn and in young children, investigated from the point of view of the agglutinability and group-specific absorbing power with an immune anti-Shigella dysenteriae goat serum, is comparable to that of the agglutinogens A and B, namely, the agglutinability and the absorbing power are both extremely poor at birth, but increase until after 3 to 5 years their values become equal to those of the adult. Saliva from newborn and children of group O of the “secretor” type, neutralizes anti-0 serum approximately to the same degree as saliva of adults of group O. The results obtained seem to contradict recent investigations which consider the so-called anti-0 sera to have only an anti-H specificity. Probably, anti-0 sera contain a mixture of serologically related antibodies to some of which cannot be denied an anti-O specificity sensu strictiori.