What is hemagglutination?

Hemagglutination refers specifically to the clumping of red blood cells, which occurs when certain substances, such as viruses or agglutinins, bind to the surface of red blood cells and cause them to stick together. This phenomenon is often utilized in various laboratory techniques, such as blood typing and the detection of viral infections.

When certain viruses, for example, have hemagglutinin proteins on their surface, they can agglutinate red blood cells, which can serve as a useful marker for identifying the presence of the virus in a sample. Hemagglutination plays a crucial role in immunology and virology, helping researchers understand interactions between pathogens and host cells.

The other choices do not accurately describe hemagglutination: transformation of bacteria refers to a process by which bacteria take up foreign DNA from their environment, inhibition of microbial growth pertains to methods that prevent the proliferation of microorganisms, and detection of antibodies involves identifying specific proteins produced by the immune system but does not specifically relate to the clumping of red blood cells.