THE OCCURRENCE OF MITOCHONDRIA IN THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES DURING EXPERIMENTAL ANEMIAS

INTRODUCTION  Mitochondria are small bodies of a lipoid nature which occur in the cell protoplasm and which may be stained in a specific manner by a variety of methods.¹ They possess no fixed morphologic characteristics, but appear either as granules of varying size or as tiny rods. They are said by some to be present in all nucleated cells.Mitochondria are not demonstrable in the circulating nonnucleated erythrocytes of healthy adult mammals. Shipley¹ and others have shown, however, that they are regularly present in nucleated red cells. In such cells they have been observed in the circulating blood of lower vertebrates, in the circulating blood of mammalian embryos and in the bone marrow of adult mammals. Of more immediate interest is the fact that mitochondria have also been demonstrated in certain nonnucleated erythrocytes under conditions in which one would expect to find youthful cells of this type. For example, nonnucleated