7 July 2020 (Tuesday) - Anti-M and Dosage

An interesting case today – positive antibody screen by capture. The enzyme panel was clearly negative but panels by IAT and capture were 3+ in some cells and clearly negative in others. At first sight it seemed they seemed inconclusive, but on closer inspection the positive reactions were all with cells that were homozygous for M. In the negative reactions the M was either in the heterozygous or was absent.
I’ve seen this sort of anti-M before. The word is "dosage".. but I don’t know/can’t remember why it doesn’t react at all with the heterozygous cells. I would have expected some reaction… wouldn’t I?

I asked on some of the work-related Facebook groups. A chap with whim I went to college (all those years ago) posted a rather informative PowerPoint presentation from which I leaned loads. He also corrected my incorrect usage of the terms “homozygous” and “heterozygous”. I learned something.

But

Whilst these Facebook groups can be useful, you have to be selective in deciding to whom you will listen, and who you will ignore. Am I being arrogant in feeling that more and more they seem to be crawling with people who are planning to (yet again) re-sit GCSE science, and are looking sure to fail it again.