Red Blood Cell
Red blood cells, or erythrocytes, are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate organism's principal means of delivering oxygen (O2) to the body tissues via the blood flow through the circulatory system. They take up oxygen in the lungs or gills and release it while squeezing through the body's capillaries.
These cells' cytoplasm is rich in haemoglobin, an iron-containing biomolecule that can bind oxygen and is responsible for the blood's red color.
In humans, mature red blood cells are oval and flexible biconcave disks. They lack a cell nucleus and most organelles to accommodate maximum space for haemoglobin. 2.4 million new erythrocytes are produced per second. The cells develop in the bone marrow and circulate for about 100–120 days in the body before their components are recycled by macrophages. Each circulation takes about 20 seconds. Approximately a quarter of the cells in the human body are red blood cells.
Red blood cells are also known as RBCs, red cells, red blood corpuscles (an archaic term), haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek erythros for "red" and kytos for "hollow", with cyte translated as "cell" in modern usage).
Read more about Red Blood Cell: History, Vertebrate Erythrocytes, Mammalian Erythrocytes, Human Erythrocytes, Diseases and Diagnostic Tools
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Famous quotes containing the words cell, red and/or blood:
“It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I shall go among red faces and virile voices,
See stylish sheep, with fine heads and well-wooled,
And great bulls mellow to the touch,”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“Dust fanned in scraped puffs from the earth
Between his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,
To demonstrate its suppleness
Of veins, as he perfected his role.”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)