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Ultrastructural Studies of Erythropoiesis in β‐Thalassaemia Trait
Author(s) -
Wickramasinghe S. N.,
Hughes Madeleine
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2141.1980.tb05986.x
Subject(s) - erythroblast , ineffective erythropoiesis , erythropoiesis , vacuole , bone marrow , ultrastructure , reticulocyte , electron microscope , biology , pathology , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , immunology , medicine , biochemistry , anemia , cytoplasm , gene , rna , physics , optics
S ummary . The erythropoietic cells of six cases of β‐thalassaemia trait were studied by electron microscopy and electron microscope autoradiography. Intracytoplas‐mic and intranuclear α‐chain precipitates were found in some late polycliromatic erythroblasts and intracytoplasmic precipitates were found in several marrow reti‐culocytes. This provides direct morphological evidence of unbalanced globin chain synthesis in the marrow. Several of the polychromatic erythroblasts and marrow reticulocytes contained autophagic vacuoles and showed a variety of other dysery thropoietic changes. Erythroblast profiles containing moderate quantities of precipitated α‐chains usually suffered from a marked depression of protein synthesis. The proportions of marrow cells containing α‐chain precipitates and displaying dyserythropoietic changes varied considerably from patient to patient. It is proposed that this variation largely reflects variations in the proteolytic capacity of the erythropoietic cells in different individuals and leads to different degrees of ineffective erythropoiesis in β‐thalassaemia trait.