In 1900, Landsteiner discovered that the serum of some individuals would agglutinate the red cells of others and that this phenomenon could be used to classify individuals into different blood group phenotypes.
Four common phenotypes are recognised - o, A, B and AB. Subgroups of the A and B antigens have since been identified.
The ABO phenotype of an individual is usually determined by the agglutination reactions of the individual's red cells with Anti-A, Anti-B and Anti-A,B antisera (forward grouping).
In testing blood samples from adults, confirmation of the ABO blood group can be provided by the reactions of the individual's serum with standard A and B red cell suspensions (reverse grouping).