Ask Ms. Jessica Issue 35 – Mutant blood (Patreon)

 (The content for Ask Ms. Jessica comes from real questions from real people sent to AskMsJessica@gmail.com)

Dear Ms Jessica,

As a blood donor, I have an understanding of non-mutant blood types and how they work. Do mutants, especially mutants with animal traits, have the same blood types as a non-mutant? Is a mutant able to donate blood to another mutant? To a non-mutant and could that donation potentially trigger a mutation in someone with a dormant mutant gene? How does a fusion-type mutation affect blood types? I know it's a lot of rapid fire questions, but it's been something I've been curious about. Thank you for your answer.

A very very good question indeed. In fact, did you know that animals have vastly differing blood types from us? Cats have A, B, and O types similar to ours but other animals have entirely different blood groups. Dogs can have type A, B, C, D, F, or Tr blood. Pigs can have Ea, Eb, Ga, Ha, and Ka blood. Horses have groups A, C, D, K, P, Q, and U.

As you know, blood type is determined by which antigens your blood cells carry and which are free floating in your plasma. So whether or not a mutant has a different blood type than our own is really a matter of whether or not their blood, blood cells, and the substance that creates their blood mutates. Minor mutants may still have ABO blood like ours, but more complex mutants can have antigens we have never seen before.

Some animals don’t even have red blood. Horseshoe craps have copper based blood (as opposed to iron based blood) which causes their blood to appear blue due to a compound called hemocyanin. Scorpions have the same blue blood too. You can imagine that scorpion or crustacean mutants might carry the same blue blood.

As a precaution, every mutant in Port Solei has to donate their own blood to blood banks after they mutate. This ensures that there is blood ready for transfusion, should something happen. It’s much, much harder to find compatible donors for mutants. 

Similarly, mutant blood, for the most part, is not donated to non-mutants. You are correct in that a mutant blood transfusion can cause a non-active mutant gene to activate. You can imagine the problems that this could cause, so mutant blood transfusions are basically illegal almost everywhere except for extenuating circumstances. 

As for how fusions effect blood type, most fusions actually do, well, fuse their subjects. While there are some chimeric fusions, with two separate blood types, these are about as rare as chimeric humans. For the most part, fused mutants will just have one blood type, but once again this might not be what you expect. Even human looking mutants might have blood types that that vary wildly from the standard ABO model.

This is why it is very, very important to get yourself fully examined when you mutate, even if the mutation is something as minor as a change in hair color or slightly sharper nails. You might appear mostly human, but your blood and for that matter your internal organs may be mutated much more than your outward appearance has.

Dr. Jessica Park

AskMsJessica@gmail.com