ISSN: 2573-1734
Authors: Kearse KP*
The Turin Shroud is a linen cloth that has been suggested to represent either the burial wrapping of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, or a clever medieval forgery. Previously, the observation was made that blood fibers taken from the Shroud reacted with human polyclonal antisera raised against the S antigen, located on glycophorin B. As expression of the S antigen is exclusive to humans, this finding could support the idea that human blood is present on the Shroud, a notion often promoted in various books and websites. A modern assessment of the experimental design, however, shows that such antisera were particularly prone to cross-reactivity with blood from a bountiful number of other species. Indeed, it is now established that anti-alpha galactose 1,3 antibodies are highly abundant in human sera, which recognize red blood cells of all non-primate mammals. Thus, such human polyclonal antisera could not be used to distinguish blood species of origin as the cross-reactivity potential is quite vast and would confound any potential binding observed with anti-S specific antibodies. These findings underscore the necessity of using more current serological tools in any future investigation of blood-stained artifacts such as the Shroud, particularly in relation to species determination.
Keywords: Turin Shroud; Blood; MNS; Polyclonal; Monoclonal
