Can hemagglutination cause ischeamia?

/me ponderifies

im not sure if it happens in vivo (i doubt it, but i'd have to look it up, though thinking further on it, i dont think it happens)

In antibody/red cell interactions, there is generally binding of antibody (hither forth ab) to the appropriate antigen (ag) on the red cell. This ab can activate complement* itself (and cause the immediate destruction of the red cell intravascularly) or it can be picked up by macrophages in the spleen and the red cell is "removed" (scrapped, destroyed, meets its dooooooom).

Haemaglutination is when ab coated red cells stick together (some ab's can form crosslinks between redcells). It's not common with IgG ab (they're too small to overcome the zeta potential), and IgM tends to be a potent activator of complement (the cells have been destroyed before they can say "IgWhat?"). A lot of what allows haemaglutination to occur in tubes (blood grouping, crossmatching, etc) is the processes performed by the laboratory, like centrifuging to get the cells near to each other, and using enhancers like LISS and enzyme techniques.

Overall, my opinion would be no, but I'd suggest maybe asking some haematology textbooks.


*Complement is great stuff, go look it up. One of the great things it does is, wehn activated is punch holes in the membrane of the offending cell.