Individual Osmotic Fragility Distribution: A New Parameter for Determination of the Osmotic Properties of Human Red Blood Cells

The aim of our experiments was to characterise and to validate the osmotic fragility test when applied to human blood samples with no significant alterations of osmotic fragility but with a differentiating shape of the haemolysis curve. All experiments were carried out on human erythrocytes taken from the Regional Centre of Blood Donation and Blood Therapy in Wrocław. The washed erythrocytes were exposed to near-infrared radiation (NIR) or ozonated, and the osmotic fragility test was applied. The osmotic fragility, calculated from the experimental haemolysis curve for the control and cells irradiated for 15 min, is the same within the empirical error. Calculation of the first derivative of the haemolysis curve allowed us to visualise the changes in osmotic fragility distribution after exposure to NIR. By contrast, significant changes both to the osmotic fragility value and the distribution of osmotic properties were observed after an erythrocytes ozonation procedure. Description of cell osmotic properties requires at least two parameters—the value of osmotic fragility and the slope of the haemolysis curve in the region where absorbance sharply increases due to cell haemolysis.