Affect Of Varying Salt Concentration on Red Blood Cell Haemolysis

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COURSEWORK

INVESTIGATION

Affect Of Varying Salt Concentration on Red Blood Cell Haemolysis

Tahir Aziz

CONTENTS

  • Plan

  • Outline method

  • Key variables

  • Risk assessment

  • Preliminary results

  • Method

  • Results of control experiments

  • Results

  • Conclusions

  • Main trends and patterns

  • Explanation of results

  • Experimental limitations

                                                                                                                                                                        

Affect Of Varying Salt Concentration on Red Blood Cell Haemolysis

Abstract

The average adult has about five litres of blood living inside of their body, coursing through their vessels, delivering essential elements, and removing harmful wastes. Without blood, the human body would stop working.

Blood is the fluid of life, transporting oxygen from the lungs to body tissue and carbon dioxide from body tissue to the lungs. Blood is the fluid of growth, transporting nourishment from digestion and hormones from glands throughout the body. Blood is the fluid of health, transporting disease fighting substances to the tissue and waste to the kidneys.

Because it contains living cells, blood is alive.  and  are responsible for nourishing and cleansing the body. Since the cells are alive, they too need nourishment. Vitamins and Minerals keep the blood healthy. The blood cells have a definite life cycle, just as all living organisms do.

Approximately 55 percent of blood is , a straw-collared clear liquid. The liquid plasma carries the solid cells and the , which help blood clot. Without blood platelets, you would bleed to death.

Haemolysis is a term used to describe the release of intracellular components from erythrocytes into the extra cellular fluid (plasma).

Red blood cells are flattened, biconcave discs and have a partially permeable membrane, which allows substances such as water molecules to move through freely by osmosis.

Water molecules will diffuse from a solution with a high water potential to a solution with lower water potential down an osmotic gradient.

“Osmosis is the diffusion of water molecules from a higher (less negative) water potential to a lower (more negative) potential through a partially permeable membrane”

(Molecules and Cells Text book, P66)

Water potential plays a key factor during the haemolysis of erythrocytes if the water potential within the cytosol is greater than that of the saline solution to which it has been introduced there will be a net movement of water molecules from the cytosol through the plasma membrane into the saline solution resulting in the shrinking of the red blood cell.

If red blood cells are introduced to a solution where the water potential within the red blood cell and the solution around them is the same there will be movement of molecules however this will be kept in equilibrium so no haemolysis will occur.

When introduced to a hypotonic solution there will be net movement of water molecules form the saline solution into the cell causing the cell to swell and burst.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that as the concentration of Sodium chloride in the saline solutions decreases haemolysis will increase

Outline plan

  • 2cm3 of blood
  • 1 x 0.1 cm3 micropipette
  • Colorimeter
  • Test tubes
  • Test tube rack
  • Curettes (colorimetric analysis)
  • 1% Sodium chloride solution
  • 2 x 1.0 cm3 measuring pipettes
  • Distilled Water
  • Stopwatch
  • Glass rod
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Method

  1. Make up the saline solutions in the following concentrations using pipettes; carefully measure out the volumes of both sodium chloride and water to give all the concentrations required and place in separate test tubes.

  1. Shake the bottle from which the blood sample will be taken and carefully measure out 0.1cm3 of blood using micropipette and test tube. Note each test tube must have a separate stopwatch designated to it so the experiment is as fair as possible and stopwatch must ...

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A very good investigation on sodium chloride concentration and red blood cell haemolysis. The write up is comprehensive and well thought out, although the lack of graph work reduces the strength of the analysis. Anomalous results are identified and discussed giving valid reasons for them. 4 stars.