Question: Describe the cellular components of blood. What is the function of each of the different components? How do they function to maintain homeostasis?
Question: Describe the cellular components of blood. What is the function of each of the different components? How do they function to maintain homeostasis?
Answer: The human body contains about 5L of blood. Blood consists of about 55% plasma. Plasma is about 90% water and the other 10% contains proteins, salts, O2, CO2, nutrients, wastes and hormones that need to be transported throughout the body. The other 45% of blood contains different components that function in helping the body maintain a homeostatic state. These components include red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.
One component of the blood is red blood cells which are also called erythrocytes. They contain carbohydrate molecules of their surface that determine the blood type of the individual which includes type A, B, AB, or O. Each cell also contains about 250 million molecules of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a protein that contains iron which transports oxygen throughout the body. Red blood cells are disk-shaped with an indention in the middle to increase surface area for gas exchange. They have more room to carry the hemoglobin proteins because they do not have nuclei and organelles. Oxygen diffuses into red blood cells by binding to the hemoglobin proteins as they pass through the capillary beds in the lungs and is diffuses out of the cells in the capillaries of the systemic circuit.
An adequate amount of red blood cells are vital to the body in order to maintain a homeostatic state. Too low amounts of red blood cells or the hemoglobin protein that they carry can cause serious conditions such as anemia. Anemia causes a person to feel fatigued because their body cells are not receiving and adequate amount of oxygen. Anemia is can result from blood loss, vitamin or mineral deficiencies, cancers, and a hemoglobin gene mutation.
Another important component in the blood is white blood cells which are also called leucocytes. They contain nuclei and organelles but do not contain the hemoglobin protein like red blood cells. White blood cells are important in helping the body maintain its homeostatic state. They can fight infections and cancer in the body. White blood cells can be found in the interstitial fluid where many infections are combated, as well as in the circulatory system. The amount of white blood cells increases when there is an infection present.
The last component in blood is platelets which are also called thrombocytes. Platelets are fragments of cytoplasm from larger cells in bone marrow. They also aid in keeping the body in a homeostatic state by forming blood clots when the epithelium lining a blood vessel gets damaged. Platelets attach to the damaged vessel and form a cluster that will seal a minor injury. They also discharge clotting factors that can convert fibrinogen protein in blood plasma into fibrin protein that forms a clot also known as a scab on the skin. It is important that platelets function properly because the body needs to be able clot in order to maintain a homeostatic state. Hemophilia is caused by mutations in genes that make clotting factors. Hemophilia is serious disease because a person can bleed to death from a minor injury. Too much blood clotting can cause a thrombus blood clot that can turn into an embolus clot if it lodges in an artery and can cause a heart attack or stroke.
The knowledge of what components are in blood and how they function to maintain a homeostatic state will aid me when I am a healthcare professional. If I had a patient that was diagnosed with sickle-cell disease I would be able to explain their condition to them. Sickle cell disease causes red blood cells become crescent-shaped, instead of their normal disk-shape with an indention in the middle. This shape results from mutation of hemoglobin chains in red blood cells. The mutated hemoglobin molecules cannot be oxygenated properly in the capillaries of the lungs and deoxygenated properly in the capillaries of the systemic circuit. This results in a low oxygen concentration in the blood causing the sickle shape. The sickle-shape disrupts the red blood cells function so the body is not able to maintain a homeostatic state. Sickle cell disease can cause serious problems throughout the body because the abnormal red blood cells can block blood vessels or can damage the body’s organs due to their shape.
