What happens to your personal DNA structure when you receive a blood donation ? Does your body assimilate this new DNA into yours ? Does is alter it for life ?
I was just thinking if you were identified by the DNA in your blood, what effect any “foreign” blood would have. I did a search for “DNA blood” on the general board and couldn’t find any info. I’m sorry if this has been covered elsewhere before. Thanks !
Human, or any blood, has a limited lifespan when in circulation. It will keep it’s DNA to itself and eventually be destroyed in the pancreas and flushed out through the liver, kidneys and bowel. By then, the persons normal blood supply will have been regrown and replenished.
I hate to hijack, but I was always told red blood cells don’t have nuclei. How would they carry genetic information?
No, your body doesn’t directly assimilate the new DNA. When the cells are destroyed the DNA is digested along with all te other material in the cell and either burned as food or reconstructed as DNA in new cells. This reconstruction requires the DNA to be completely disassembled so you’re not assimilting the DNA any more than you are assimilating cow protein when you eat a hamburger.
In the case of a DNA analysis, the result would be highly skewed immediately following a large transfusion, probably enough to get you off. However if it’s known that you’ve had a transfusion (and it’s a safe bet the police would know) there are apparently ways of separating contaminants from a specimen (don’t ask me how). Of course most DNA samples are obtained from mouth swabs which wouldn’t be affected to any significant degree.
Well, first of all, red blood cells have no nucleus nor nuclear DNA. White blood cells do. But that’s irrelevant, since the answer would be the same in either case.
The blood cells you get from a transfusion do not make more blood cells. Those are made in your bone marrow. The cells from the transfusion will do their job and eventually get worn out, at which point they are broken down by your body and replaced with new cells made by your own marrow.
So after a certain amount of time, you no longer have foreign blood cells in your body.
Generally, blood is centrifuged upon banking. Transfusions, as commonly thought, are packed red blood cells, which spin down to the bottom of the blood. Most RBCs have no genetic material (although immature ones, reticulocytes, do retain some). When you receive nucleated cells of any kind, those cells usually die and get digested eventually. No DNA becomes assimilated into your genome. There is a possibility of engrafting of circulating bone marrow hematopoetic stem cells (as in bone marrow transplantation), especially if you are somehow immunosuppressed. Still, you would not incorporate the DNA into your genome, but rather just become a “mosaic” of cells.
I can envision ways in which genetic material is transferred, just for shits and giggles. It would involve something exogenous, though, like viral transduction.
I thought ever cell of our body contained our DNA blueprint. If red blood cells have no nucleus, it probably does not matter in terms of identification. Any blood evidence at a crime scene would never be as small as a single red blood cell.
So it sounds like the DNA in your blood is skewed for at least a short time after receiving blood. Why didn’t OJ think of this ?