ArticleInternational journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases2021
Covid-19 and blood groups: ABO antibody levels may also matter.
Article in International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 77 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mucosal immune response in biology, disease prevention and treatment.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Pooled it
- A narrative review of the epidemiological and mechanistic associations between ABO blood groups and diseases: focusing on cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, malaria, COVID-19 and rheumatic diseases.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Point-of-care GlycoStrips detect serum and salivary antibodies to blood group antigens and pathogens.Trends in biotechnology · 2026Article
- COVID-19 and blood group-related antigens: can natural anti-carbohydrate antibodies provide innate protection from symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection?Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Blood Group Variations in COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma and Regular Blood Donors: A Comparative Analysis in the Serbian Population.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Investigating ABO Blood Groups and Secretor Status in Relation to SARS-CoV-2 Infection and COVID-19 Severity.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Review
- Predictive value of ferritin, glucose, urea, and creatinine for COVID-19 severity and mortality in patients from Asir, Saudi Arabia.Saudi medical journal · 2023Article
- Immunoglobulin Class Profiles of ABO Antibodies in Saliva and Serum of Healthy Individuals.Transfusion medicine and hemotherapy : offizielles Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Transfusionsmedizin und Immunhamatologie · 2023Article
- Review
- SARS-CoV-2 IgG seroprevalence surveys in blood donors before the vaccination campaign, France 2020-2021.iScience · 2023Article
- Blood-Type-A is a COVID-19 infection and hospitalization risk in a Turkish cohort.Transfusion clinique et biologique : journal de la Societe francaise de transfusion sanguine · 2023Article
- ABO Blood Groups and Incidence of COVID-19 in the Mass Gathering Events in Borriana (Spain), March 2020: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Viral load at hospitalization is an independent predictor of severe COVID-19.European journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- COVID-19 host genetics and ABO blood group susceptibility.Cambridge prisms. Precision medicine · 2023Review
- Observational
- ABO blood group is involved in the quality of the specific immune response anti-SARS-CoV-2.Virulence · 2022Article
- Do Blood Phenotypes of Feline AB Blood Group System Affect the SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Serostatus in Cats?Viruses · 2022Article
- A Sweet Warning: Mucin-Type O-Glycans in Cancer.Cells · 2022Review
- ABO and Rh blood groups, demographics, and comorbidities in COVID-19 related deaths: A retrospective study in Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia.Transfusion and apheresis science : official journal of the World Apheresis Association : official journal of the European Society for Haemapheresis · 2022Article
- Evaluation of Association between Blood Phenotypes A, B and AB and Feline Coronavirus Infection in Cats.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSusceptibility to Covid-19 has been found to be associated with the ABO blood group, with O type individuals being at a lower risk. However, the underlying mechanism has not been elucidated. Here, we aimed to test the hypothesis that Covid-19 patients might have lower levels of ABO antibodies than non-infected individuals as they could offer some degree of protection.
methodsAfter showing that the viral spike protein harbors the ABO glycan epitopes when produced by cells expressing the relevant glycosyltransferases, like upper respiratory tract epithelial cells, we enrolled 290 patients with Covid-19 and 276 asymptomatic controls to compare their levels of natural ABO blood group antibodies.
resultsWe found significantly lower IgM anti-A + anti-B agglutination scores in blood group O patients (76.93 vs 88.29, P-value = 0.034) and lower levels of anti-B (24.93 vs 30.40, P-value = 0.028) and anti-A antibodies (28.56 vs 36.50, P-value = 0.048) in blood group A and blood group B patients, respectively, compared to controls.
conclusionIn this study, we showed that ABO antibody levels are significantly lower in Covid-19 patients compared to controls. These findings could indicate that patients with low levels of ABO antibodies are at higher risk of being infected.
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