Surface Ultramicroscopy of Sickle Cells

Abstract

SICKLE cell anaemia is a hereditary disease attributable to homozygosity for the abnormal haemoglobin S (HbS). It is generally accepted that on deoxygenation the HbS, by molecular alignment¹, forms insoluble filaments which may produce various deformed types of cell². In the presentation of the surface ultramicroscopy of human blood cells, Clarke and Salsbury³ represented the pathological red cells of sickle cell anaemia as typically elongated with a linear fold extending along the long axis. They did not specify the state of oxygenation of the cells they observed. Using the scanning electron microscope, we have examined the surfaces of oxygenated and de-oxygenated red blood cells from anaemic patients. We have observed various cell shapes ranging from the normal to elongated deformed types in the oxygenated preparations, and holly-leaf prickled forms to extreme elongation in the deoxygenated cells.