Sunday, 27 January 2019

cell biology - Why does alcohol cause the hemolysis of RBC in a large proportion?


I had today an experiment that we put 95% alcohol to the blood which made it completely transparent so hemolysis must have occurred. I started to think about the reasons.


I think that this is because alcohol dissolved the lipid membrane of cells outside of the cell. Alcohol molecule is also very small. I think that I can go through the bilayer too. So I started to think that the other possible reason was that alcohol went inside the cell so caused



  • dissolution of the membrane from the inner side

  • increase in the volume of the cell so bursting



What are the main reasons why Alcohol cause hemolysis to the red blood cell?




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