Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug;61(8):2245-2249.
doi: 10.1111/trf.16524. Epub 2021 May 27.

Blood group O convalescent plasma donations have significantly lower levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies compared to blood group A donations

Chelsea Hayes  1 , Wesley Rubenstein  1 , David Gibb  1 , Ellen Klapper  1 , Julie Tanaka  1 , Samuel Pepkowitz  1
Affiliations

Blood group O convalescent plasma donations have significantly lower levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies compared to blood group A donations

Chelsea Hayes et al. Transfusion. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) is plasma collected from individuals who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The FDA Emergency Use Authorization restricts use of CCP to high-titer units only. The purpose of this study was to determine if donor ABO blood group was associated with SARS-CoV-2 antibody response, and subsequent qualification as high-titer CCP.

Methods: All CCP donations collected from April 21, 2020 to September 1, 2020 were included. The Abbott ARCHITECT semi-quantitative chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay was used to assess IgG antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2. Units with a S/C value ≥4.5 were considered high titer.

Results: A total of 232 CCP donations were evaluated. There were no significant differences in the distribution of sex, age, and interval from symptom resolution to donation by ABO blood group. The mean SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody S/C value was significantly lower in blood group O donations (3.6), compared to blood group A (5.0) donations (p < .001). There was no difference in antibody response between the other blood group pairings. Blood group O donations resulted in a lower percentage of high-titer units (35%), compared to blood group A (60%), B (58%), and AB (65%) donations.

Conclusion: Blood group O donations were found to have significantly lower levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG nucleocapsid antibodies compared to blood group A donations and were less likely to produce CCP units that qualified as high titer. These findings may aid donor recruitment to promote availability of high-titer CCP to meet patient needs.

Keywords: ABO blood group; Covid-19 convalescent plasma; SARS-CoV-2; antibody titer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have disclosed no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Distribution of SARS‐CoV‐2 IgG S/C value by ABO blood group in CCP donations. Box‐and‐whisker plot depicts the median (horizontal line), mean (X), interquartile ranges, and minimum and maximum values. p‐values using a one‐way ANOVA with a post hoc Tukey multiple comparison test are as follows: O vs A < 0.001, O vs B = 0.084, O vs AB = 0.113, A vs B = 0.999, A vs AB > 0.999, and B vs AB = 0.999
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Number of high‐titer (S/C ≥ 4.5) and low‐titer donations by ABO blood group
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Hinton D. Emergency use authorization for COVID‐19 convalescent plasma: letter of authorization [monograph on the internet]. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2021. https://www.fda.gov/media/141477/download. Accessed March 8, 2021.
    1. ARCHITECT SARS‐CoV‐2 IgG Package Insert [monograph on the internet]. Abbott Laboratories. 2020. https://www.fda.gov/media/137383/download. Accessed June 17, 2020.
    1. Zhao J, Yang Y, Huang H, Li D, Gu D, Lu X, et al. Relationship between the ABO blood group and the COVID‐19 susceptibility. Clin Infect Dis. 2020. 10.1093/cid/ciaa1150. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wu Y, Feng Z, Li P, Yu Q. Relationship between ABO blood group distribution and clinical characteristics in patients with COVID‐19. Clin Chim Acta. 2020;509:220–3. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Muñiz‐Diaz E, Llopis J, Parra R, Roig I, Ferrer G, Grifols J, et al. Relationship between the ABO blood group and COVID‐19 susceptibility, severity and mortality in two cohorts of patients. Blood Transfus. 2021;19:54–63. - PMC - PubMed