I bought a microscope a while back to satisfy a good chunk of curiosity. Lots of fascinating things out there. I always wanted to look at blood, but was too much of a girly-boy to poke myself with a steak knife. But last night a small cut reopened on my leg and a few drops eeked out. Ah ha! Said I, as I dove under the futon to pull out the microscope and some slides. I didn’t quite see what I expected (which, I must admit, is half the fun).
Of course describing what I saw is a nearly impossible task, but please bear with me. When I got up close (the highest power is 15X100, though I don’t have any immersion oil just yet) the cells looked almost-kinda-sorta what I would have expected them to look like. Roundish, and almost doughnutish. Small, mind you, and in my zeal to take a peek I didn’t really prepare the slide- no die, etc. Just a cover slip. Anyway, the cells (if that is what I really was looking at, and not dirt on the lens) seemed almost to be stacked up on top of each other. It was as if someone opened up cans and cans of Pringles (the potato chip- I told you this would be difficult) under the slide, with the very occasional free floating cell hanging out beside them. I can’t recall if there was a size difference between the solitary free cell (please don’t use that against me) and the chains/ stacks.
Well, all of my biology texts (all two of them) go into great detail about the parts of a cell, and show images I don’t think I could get with a simple microscope. None shows such a stand-off image as I had, so I have no idea what I am looking at. As there were a few minutes of fumbling for the microscope with the blood exposed to the air, my first guess is that what I saw were platelets, trying to do their job. How they got stacked up, one on top of the other I have no idea, curious as to what mechanisms are at work. My second guess is that because I didn’t really prepare the slide, there were electrostatic effects coming into play, pulling the cells together. And of course, since these are just guesses, there is always the mysterious D- None of the Above category (cue X-Files music).
So is it possible to tell what I was seeing from my descriptions? Thanks,
Rhythmdvl
We’ve looked at blood recently in some Anatomy/ Physiology classes, and I can tell you, red blood cells (most of what you probably saw) are very, Very tiny. Platelets tend to look like triangles of dark stuff, less than 1/4 the size of an RBC. White blood cells come in several varieties and I was just about to tell you what they look like under the scope when I realized I don’t know how they would appear unstained. Sizewise, they are maybe 4-5 times as large as RBCs, and stained have large nuclei (one per cell).
Red blood cells don’t have a nucleus. They also don’t have a lot of the “generic cell” organelles you would have seen in a general BIO textbook, because they are stripped down and highly specialized for carrying O2 to your cells. The donut shape you saw maximizes surface area and minimizes volume (to allow for quick diffusion in and out of the cell). Platelets do indeed stack up to stop blood loss, but it would start to look more like just a lump with some fibers than individual pieces of cell, even at that magnification.
For another fun thing to look at with your new scope, have you tried a mouth swab? You can get some good epithelial cells by rubbing a Q-tip or similar swab along the inside of your cheek, then smearing that around on a slide. You should be able to see the nuclei in the cells, which will be scattered around the slide.
Also try these fun ideas:
[ul]pulling out a hair and looking at the bulb,
slicing very thin slivers of onion,
tissue paper with water dropped on it,
tap water that has been sitting in a cup for a few days,
or reproductive, ah, secretions. [/ul]
Patently untrue. If, that is, you spend a few hundred hours examining peripheral blood smears under a microscope. Then they sort of take on personalities of their own…
I think you were seeing the pseudorouleaux that Yeah referred to - i.e. your smear was too thick. When viewing blood under a scope you don’t want to just drop a cover slip on top of a drop of blood. Rather you should try the following:
1.) Center a ( very small ) drop of blood on the slide.
2.) Get a cover slip between a couple of fingers ( with one finger resting on the top edge ) and position it vertically relative to the slide and resting on one edge against it on one side of the drop, but angle the cover slip very slightly away from the drop.
3.) Pull the cover slip back slowly across the slide until the edge is just barely touching one edge of the drop - Capillary tension will then cause the blood to spread across the bottom edge of the cover slip.
4.) When the blood has spread to the point where it is almost, but not quite, spread all the way across the bottom edge ( i.e. when it is almost to the two opposite sides - this will happen very quickly ), push lightly and smoothly with that finger that is resting on the top edge of the cover slip and push the cover slip’s lower edge away from the blood droplet so that the slip’s edge scoots away and the slip eventually drops into place on the slide. The blood will be drawn in a thin smear across the slide by capillary tension and your cover slip will be sitting on top of said smear.
It sounds clumsy ( because I suck at explaining things ) and it takes a bit of practice to get the hang of, but what you end up with if you do it properly, is a single layer of cells spread out under the cover slip. Makes observation much easier.
It’s a good way to get a viewable blood smear, but I’d use another slide to do the spreading instead of a coverslip. The drop of blood makes a smear the length of the slide, thick at the starting end and thin at the finish, at that point just lift the spreader slide up off the smear. Let it air dry and you’re good to go. You don’t have to have a coverslip for viewing, even with oil. Personal experience taught me that coverslips break too easily and leave you plucking shards of glass out of your fingers.
I never could get the hang of the spreader slide technique myself. Couldn’t control the speed very well. However at work we’ve got a nifty little device that makes two near perfect smears at once. I am so spoiled…
) and it takes a bit of practice to get the hang of, but what you end up with if you do it properly, is a single layer of cells spread out under the cover slip. Makes observation much easier.