23andMe customers who are curious about the genetic basis of their ABO blood type, or don’t already know which one they have, can now find out using our newest Labs feature.

The ABO blood group is just one of more than 25 that go into giving a person their particular “type,” but it is probably the most familiar. The consequences of a mismatch during a transfusion also make it one of the most critical to know: receiving blood with the wrong ABO type causes a person’s immune system to attack the donated cells, which can lead to uncontrolled blood clotting, shock, acute kidney failure and even death.  Fortunately, these types of mix-ups rarely happen.

The different versions of the ABO gene that give people their type A, B, AB or O blood arise from SNPs that are included on the custom v2 version of the 23andMe SNP chip.  We’re now able to use this information to give customers a prediction of their blood type in our ABO lab, our third offering in 23andMe Labs.  Like other labs, the new ABO offering has its own community so customers can compare notes, ask questions and share ideas.

In honor of this latest addition, the Spittoon will be taking a look at the some of the science surrounding ABO blood types over the next week. Stay tuned!

(To whet your appetite, check out the SNPwatch posted just yesterday about the relationship between blood type and the risk for pancreatic cancer.)

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The 23andMe Personal Genome Service™ offers information about customers’ maternal and paternal ancestry by examining their mitochondrial DNA (which we all inherit from our mothers) and the Y chromosome (which is passed by fathers to their sons).

Over our species’ history new genetic variations have arisen spontaneously in those pieces of DNA, and been passed down through the generations. So researchers know that every person alive today who has a particular variation — say a T instead of a G at a certain spot on the mtDNA — is descended from a single common ancestor. By sampling people from around the world, scientists have been able to assemble “family trees” that trace all the way back to the dawn of the human species in eastern Africa more than 100,000 years ago. Those trees are the basis of the haplogroup assignments we give our customers. Each haplogroup represents a particular branch — and therefore a unique sequence of SNPs.

Now you can see exactly which SNPs we use to generate the 23andMe mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplogroup trees, using a feature we’ve developed called the Haplogroup Tree Mutation Mapper. This isn’t the kind of information everyone would necessarily want, but a number of customers who are especially interested in genetic genealogy have requested it. It can be used to compare our haplogroup assignments to those obtained elsewhere, for example.

The Haplogroup Tree Mutation Mapper is the first arrival in 23andMe Labs, our new technology sandbox where we will showcase experimental features not currently available in our Personal Genome Service™.  These features may still be in development, require specialized knowledge or be of interest only to a subset of our customers. Each lab will have its own community so customers can compare notes, ask questions and share ideas.

Some labs will be requested by customers. In fact, we welcome your suggestions. Others will be dreamed up by our scientists.

Finally, you can expect labs to be a little less refined than what’s available within the Personal Genome Service, and somewhat fluid as well. A feature could be discontinued at any time, or it might be elevated to full integration with our Personal Genome Service.

We’re really excited about having this new outlet for our ingenuity, and we hope it will engage some of yours as well!

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