Conductometric study of erythrocytes during centrifugation. I. Size distribution of erythrocytes.

Sedimentation of hardened erythrocytes in a centrifugal field was studied by time recording of the current chamber in the longitudinal and the transversal directions relative to the cells' movement. The results clearly indicate the existence of an erythrocyte concentration profile during centrifugation. The rates of both longitudinal and transversal current alteration increase with centripetal acceleration and with falling cell concentration. The pellet formed from hardened cells represents virtually incompressible body. It is shown that erythrocyte shape affects the pellet conductivity. Analysis of the data using the modified Stokes' law enables calculation of the cell size distribution. The modal size of macrocytes, normal erythrocytes and two samples of microcytes thus measured was 3.40, 3.01, 2.63 and 2.83 microns, respectively. These data demonstrate that conductometric analysis is useful for investigating abnormalities in erythrocyte size.