RED BLOOD CELLS

A few days back when I was shaving I had a cut in the index finger of my left hand. I did not take is seriously. But in a few minutes blood was flowing profusely from the cut spilling over the floor. I stopped the blood flow by applying antibiotic ointment. It made me to become curious to know more about blood.

Red blood cells, shortly known as RBCs, are responsible for delivering oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in the body of a man and woman. It is carried out by blood flow through the circulatory system in a human body. 

BLOOD DROPS WITH AND WITHOUT OXYGEN

The cytoplasm, a gel like thing in RBC, is rich in hemoglobin.  It contains iron-containing biomolecules which can bind oxygen temporarily and is responsible for the red colour of the blood. The cell membrane is composed of proteins and lipids. This structure gives the properties of deformity and stability to RBCs while passing through capillary tubes in the circulatory system.

The human RBCs are flexible and oval biconcave disk. They do not have cell nucleus and organs to make large room for hemoglobin. Approximately 2.4 million new RBCs are produced per second in an adult. The RBCs develop in bone marrow and circulate in the body for 100 to 120 days. Then they are consumed by white blood cells. One circulation takes 20 seconds.  Quarter of cells in human body are RBCs.

CYCLIC OPERATION OF BLOOD CELL WITH AND WITHOUT OXYGEM

Oxygen can easily diffuse through blood cell membranes and get released to all the tissues in the body. Haemoglobin carries some waste carbon dioxide received from tissues but most carbon dioxide are carried to lungs capillaries dissolved in blood plasma.

The blood plasma is yellow in colour. Blood cells become bright red while carrying oxygen rich blood and dark red when carrying carbon dioxide without oxygen. Haemoglobin has great affinity for carbon monoxide which is a poisonous gas. When it combines with CO the blood colour becomes dazzling bright red.

Adult humans have approximately 20 to 30 trillion red blood cells at any time. The red colour of blood cells is due to the spectral properties of hemic iron ions in the hemoglobin. Each human red blood cell carries 270 million hemoglobin biomolecules. The protein in the blood carries 98% of oxygen while only 2% is carried through blood plasma.