Encyclopedia > Reticulocyte

  Article Content

Reticulocyte

Reticulocytes are young red blood cells, that normally comprise about 1% of the red cells in the human body.

They are called reticulocytes, because of a reticular (mesh-like) network of RNA that becomes visible under a microscrope with certain stains. They appear slightly bluer than other red cells when looked at with the normal Romanowsky stain. Reticulocytes are also slightly larger, which can be picked up as a high MCV (mean cell volume) with a full blood count done by machine.

Reticulocytes increase in number and percentage when there is a lot of new production of blood cells, (such as in a haemolytic anaemia).



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Urethra

... (it occurs lower than normal in hypospadias). A chordee[?] is when the urethra develops between the penis and the scrotum. Infection of the urethra is urethritis, said to ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 38.4 ms