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How can we classify red blood cells while they lack nucleus? From my point of view i find it difficult to be classified as we have all cells with nucleus, even prokaryotic cells which have no nucleus membrane but they have a nucleus material which is DNA. Maybe if we classify it as a type of cell which lacks nucleus and others are cells with nucleus

John Mkumbwa
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    What do you mean by classify? Red blood cells have a highly distinctive shape, which you can use to discriminate them against other blood cells. – Chris Aug 30 '17 at 12:17
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    Human RBC develop from a nucleated cell which, clearly, is eukaryotic. They lose their nucleus at the end of their developmental pathway. It wouldn't make any sense to reclassify them. If you need an adjective to describe them it is: anucleate. – Alan Boyd Aug 30 '17 at 12:27

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As with many types of blood cells, subsetting cell types in a heterogeneous population can be done by flow cytometry. This is really quite a nice paper because it explores the differences between erythroid lineage cells and other cell types. Based on their immunophenotyping at different stages of erythroid differentiation, you can see that the cells begin to lose discerning markers as they get closer to losing the nucleus.

Also for your reference, a chart on blood cell differentiation.

Take home point: I would classify them as erythroid cells, erythrocytes on the basis of CD235+, CD71-, CD45-, CD117- by flow cytometry. CD235 may not be present in non-primate blood (ref).

CD numbers are referred to as clusters of differentiation, or as you've described it, how do we know what a cell is if it's indistinguishable from a mixed bag? These markers are used routinely in immunology for cell classification, though as commented red blood cells are easy to spot. My only thought is you may mistake a reticulocyte for a RBC by conventional light microscopy without the appropriate stain, so it's worth being careful if you're new to viewing these cells in a microscope.

We don't need to create an entirely new classification of cell, however. Think of RBC as terminally differentiated blood cells.

CKM
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