Comments on the paper 'Synergistic effects of prostacyclin analogs and phosphodiesterase inhibitors on cyclic adenosine 3′,5′ monophosphate accumulation and adenosine 3′5′ triphosphate release from human erythrocytes'

摘要

In the circulating blood, red cell ages vary from the youngest, the reticulocytes, which had left the bone marrow less than 24 h before, to the oldest whose age is about 120 days. Therefore, reticulocytes amount to about 0.8% of the circulating red cells. By staining all types of circulating blood cells using routine Wright staining or its variations, the youngest cells appear somewhat larger than mature red cells, and are polychromatophilic. The routinely employed specific staining method for reticulocytes uses New Methylene Blue. This stain demonstrates that within the reticulocyte population the cells vary in appearance. The youngest cells have a large amount of basophilic ribonu-cleoprotein, but have no nuclei from their preceding developmental stages within the bone marrow. Contrariwise, the most mature reticulocytes on the verge of becoming erythro-cytes have but a single dot to identify their pre-erythrocytic state.