The appearance of erythrocyte membrane elevations. Effects of cooling rates

Low cooling rates during the freezing procedure of normal human blood reveals red cell membrane elevations in freeze-etch electron microscopy. When high cooling rate is applied, these morphological changes are present, if the blood samples are quenched from 5 degrees C. The number of elevations is strongly reduced by low pH and glycerol. Elevations are not observed in ghosts. The formation of intramembrane particle aggregation is differently affected by many conditions.