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I am a high school student and I am a little confused that why only donor's antigen matters during blood transfusion? for e.g if the donor's blood is O- so it means that it will antibodies against all antigens so if he donated blood to say some A+ blood group then those antibodies will attack on that antigen and agglutination will occur, isn't it? At first I thought may be the antibodies do not work outside our body then later I heard of passive immunity so this thought is not correct then what's the correct reason?

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    $\begingroup$ The donor only donates a limited amount of antibodies, which will bind to a small amount of the receiver's red blood cells. With "bad" matching, the receiver has an unlimited (and increasing) amount of antibodies to bind to the donated blood cells. In practice, matching is always done to exact type. $\endgroup$
    – Polypipe Wrangler
    Apr 25, 2021 at 8:29

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Blood transfusions are done with erythrocyte concentrate and not whole blood. The antibodies are dissolved in the blood plasma. Grafting parts of the donor's immune system by transfusing white blood cells (the leukocytes) would cause even more problems than just agglutination in most cases. That's why care is taken to separate the red blood cells.

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    $\begingroup$ This looks like it might be a good answer, but answers are much more likely to receive a favorable response if you include supporting references (primary literature is best). Without that support, your answer is indistinguishable from opinion and very difficult for a non-expert to verify. This is a good example of how to format references. ——— You may also want to take the tour and then consult the help center pages for additional advice on How to Answer effectively on this site. Thank you! $\endgroup$
    – tyersome
    May 25, 2021 at 22:08
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    $\begingroup$ You ask me to support my answer to a general question about blood transfusions with primary literature sources? Why is a link to tertiary literature like wikipedia not sufficient to differentiate my answer from an opinion? The cited article cites several secondary sources to support its claims. Primary literature is close to original research, difficult for non experts on the field to understand and inappropriate to form an opinion unless you are an expert on the field. $\endgroup$
    – xenoson
    Oct 31, 2021 at 17:35

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