Donata-Landsteiner Biphasic Hemolysins

Donath-Landsteiner biphasic hemolysin is a group of antibodies that were discovered and studied by the Austrian physician Joseph Donath and the Austrian immunologist Karl Landsteiner in 1900. These antibodies play an important role in immunology and are used in the diagnosis of many diseases.

Biphasic hemolysin consists of two components: antigen and antibody. An antigen is a substance that triggers an immune response in the body. An antibody is a protein that binds to an antigen and helps the body fight infection.

In 1901, Landsteiner and Donath conducted an experiment in which they used sheep and human red blood cells. They found that human red blood cells could not be destroyed by sheep red blood cells, but sheep red blood cells could be destroyed by human red blood cells. This meant that humans and sheep have different antigens on the surface of red blood cells.

Landsteiner and Donath called this phenomenon “biphasic hemolysin.” They suggested that this is due to the fact that red blood cells have two different antigens - one on the surface and one inside the cell. If an antigen is only on the surface of a cell, it can be destroyed by an antibody that binds to that antigen. If the antigen is inside the cell, then the antibody cannot destroy it.

Today, biphasic hemolysin is used to diagnose many diseases, such as sickle cell anemia, malaria and others. It is also used in the production of vaccines and other medicines.

Donata and Landsteiner were the first to discover that when human and rabbit blood are mixed, a reaction occurs in which the red blood cells (erythrocytes) break apart. The method of dividing blood into antigens (proteins that determine the individual characteristics of the body) was also described for the first time.

The discovery prompted a lot of research, which resulted in the discovery of patterns of this phenomenon. It has been proven that when mixing the blood of different people, situations often arise in which red blood cells are destroyed, which is accompanied by the appearance of hemolysin in the blood, a substance of a protein nature.

This property began to be used to clarify the nature and further separation of various blood mixtures. The mechanism of action is associated with the ability of rabbit red blood cells to be destroyed due to exposure to erythro