Erythrocyte

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

(Redirected from Red blood cell)
Jump to: navigation, search


This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Talk
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
 
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Erythrocyte&printable=yes
This is a draft article, under development and not meant to be cited but you can help to improve it. These unapproved articles are subject to a disclaimer.

Erythrocytes are cellular components of blood, also called red blood cells (RBC). "Mature erythrocytes are non-nucleated, biconcave disks containing hemoglobin whose function is to transport oxygen."[1] Reticulocytes are the immediate immature precursors of erythrocytes.

A basic way to characterize the functioning of the mass of erythrocytes in a living creature is to determine the hemoglobin content per unit volume of blood, the number of erythrocytes, or the percentage of blood made up of cells (i.e., the hematocrit; the bulk of blood cells are erythrocytes). Given these measurements, it is possible to compute erythrocyte indices (i.e., red blood cell or RBC indices), which characterize the properties of the cells. Anemia is a result of an inadequate number of normal erythrocytes, or ineffective erythrocyte function because the erythrocytes do not contain enough hemoclobin or are easily destroyed.

References

  1. ↑ Anonymous, (2009) Erythrocyte (English). Medical Subject Headings. U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Retrieved from "http://en.citizendium.org:8080/wiki/Erythrocyte"
Views
Personal tools