Comparative Morphometry of Erythrocytes of Different Fish Species
Mesut Yılmaz, Olgaç Güven, Beria Falakalı Mutaf · 2015
The study was conducted to determine morphometric characteristics of red blood cells (RBCs) of different fish species caught during trawl operations carried out between 20 - 600 m depth range in Antalya Bay, Turkey. Cell and nuclear sizes of RBCs of 11 fish species examined and measured. Variations in RBCs overall shapes and sizes were observed among the species. While S. solea, P. erytrinus, T. trachurus, U. moluccensis, M. barbatus, L. mormyrus, L. whiffiagonis and H. dactylopterus erytrocytes maintained smooth morphology, sickling with a prominent hemoglobin bar appeared in N. randalli, E. aeneus and M. merluccius. The latter group of fishes seemed to manage to survive successfully at least 1 hour in controlled environment created on board even with haemoglobin polymerisation caused by capture stress. The present study showed that sickling shape in RBCs depends on the presence of solid cytoplasmic bar of hemoglobin that distorted cell shape. Moreover, statistically different size measurements were obtained between the normal and sickle cell groups of E. aeneus and N. randalli at the significance level of P<0.001. Nuclei, in the cells changing into sickle forms, showed shrinkage to compact structures, without any significant changes in NL/NW values. The mechanism of haemoglobin polymerisation in fishes, whether a permanent characteristics (physiological mechanism) or only appear subsequent to capture stress (adaptive mechanism), is a question to be solved in future studies.