Agglutinin

In medicine used agglutinins (from Latin: agglutinare "pin " ) as a generic term for proteins that clump of cells or corpuscular elements ( agglutination) and thus form aggregates. The term hemagglutinins is needed for historical reasons partly synonymous, but it only describes the clumping of proteins with red blood cells ( hemagglutination ). In contrast to the agglutination of agglutinins and cell aggregation of the protein refers to the clumping of proteins, precipitation describes the clumping in antibodies. Agglutinins can be determined by agglutination tests, for example in a Gruber - Widal reaction.

Specific Agglutine are:

• Agglutinins to trigger biochemical reactions, see lectins
• Agglutinins for classification in bacteriology, see Kauffmann -White scheme
• Agglutinins in the blood, see hemagglutination, blood type and crossmatch (medicine)
• Agglutinins in the blood, leading only at low temperatures to a clumping, see cold agglutinins
• Agglutinins of the influenza A virus hemagglutinin see ( influenza virus A)
• Agglutinins in medical diagnostics hemagglutination inhibition
• Paul- Bunnell reaction
• Latex test
• Serumlangsamagglutination

History

The agglutination was discovered in 1896 by Herbert Edward Durham and Max von Gruber and called Gruber -Durham reaction. This was the same year with the Gruber - Widal reaction a practical application in medical diagnostics, after Fernand Widal discovered the clumping of sera from typhoid patients upon addition of cultures of typhoid bacteria. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner discovered the blood hemagglutination mixtures of different blood groups, which led to the elucidation of the AB0 system.