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The positive or negative sign in blood groups is known as the Rh factor. It is an inherited protein found on the surface of the red blood cell. Learn more about why it is important.
Rh factor is an inherited protein found on the surface of red blood cells. If your blood has the protein, you're Rh positive. If your blood doesn't have the protein, you're Rh negative. The "+" or "–" you might see after your blood type refers to Rh positive or Rh negative.
You might have “A” type markers, “B” type, both, or neither! But those aren’t the only antigen types. The + or – part of blood type refers to the Rhesus factor, or Rh factor for short. If you have that marker, you have positive type blood. If you don’t have it, you have negative type blood.
Rh negative blood type lacks an antigen that perpetuate the release of antibodies in the event of an invasion by viruses and bacteria. This specific antigen is found on the surface of the erythrocytes exclusively in Rhesus positive blood type individuals.
This has led to speculation that Rh-Negative blood is related to Cro-Magnon ancestry going back to the upper Paleolithic period in Europe. Among the more exotic theories is the idea that the Rh-Negative gene represents a separate branch of humanity that intermarried with the branch that came out of Africa.
1. This is the Rh-positive blood cell. 2. This is the Rh-negative blood cell. 3. These are the antigens on the Rh-positive blood cell that make it positive. The antigens allow the positive blood cell to attach to specific antibodies. Rh phenotypes are readily identified through the presence or absence of the Rh surface antigens.
The major blood types include the ABO system, with types A, B, AB, or O, and the Rhesus (Rh) system, which denotes Rh positive (+) or Rh negative (-) for the presence or absence of the Rh(D) antigen, also called Rh factor.
Rh incompatibility occurs when a person who’s Rh-negative becomes pregnant with a fetus with Rh-positive blood. With Rh incompatibility, your immune system reacts to this difference (known as incompatibility) and creates antibodies.
The ABO system has four major blood types: A, B, AB, and O. Blood types are further categorized by the presence (positive or +) or absence (negative or -) of the Rh(D) antigen on the surface of their red blood cells, also known as the Rh factor. This produces the eight major blood types.
Rh negative blood types are much less common in Asian populations (0.3%) than they are in European populations (15%). [17] The presence or absence of the Rh(D) antigen is signified by the + or − sign, so that, for example, the A− group is ABO type A and does not have the Rh (D) antigen.