Postscript

Have you ever been consulted to see a patient with liver disease who may be hemolyzing? These are challenging cases because the usual hemolytic markers are also abnormal in liver disease.

Erythrocyte proteomics

• 1979 – First protein-based study of red blood cells
• 2006 – In-depth analysis of the membrane and cytosolic proteome of erythrocytes revealed:
  • 314 membrane proteins
  • 252 cytosolic proteins
• 2013 – More advanced proteomic techniques yielded 2,289 proteins in red blood cells.
• 2017 – The most recent proteomic study revealed 2650 proteins, of which 1890 occurred at more than 100 copies per cell.

Surely there are undiscovered specific hemolytic markers somewhere in the mix!