From:
http://www.scientiapress.com/trbc/trbc.htmExcerpt
"The red blood cells' unique, remarkable role in oxygen and carbon dioxide transport as well as their extremely high hemoglobin content (hundreds of millions of hemoglobin molecules are packed into every RBC), iron content, anaerobic energy metabolism, peculiar biconcave shape, and 120-day life cycle (with 2,000,000 new RBCs formed every second) sharply distinguish them from the body's other cells. While their counterparts in many vertebrates and invertebrates retain the nuclei and organelles that mammalian RBCs eject in the course of maturation, the erythrocyte group in general exhibits certain "prokaryotoid" characteristics, including an
ultrasensitivity to electromagnetic forces. Hemoglobin contains the same porphyrin ring as chlorophyll, though the ring in chlorophyll is coordinated by
a magnesium atom instead of an iron one.
Given chlorophyll's role as the light-processing molecule of plants, hemoglobin thus appears to be unusually well equipped to absorb and process light. The coordinated group response of the whole blood to threats and the RBCs' strong participation in the "communications phenomenon" whereby cells signal to each other by means of patterns of biophotons add to the picture of RBCs as conserved, "prokaryotoid"-or more exactly "metakaryotic"-they have moved beyond containing nuclei.
The discovery that neural cells can be retrained to become red blood cells suggests that
one should think not of different "kinds" of cells but rather of different "states" of cells, so the RBCs can be considered as being in a metakaryotic state. They differ from other body cells in lesser ways as well. For instance, RBCs are the only cells in the body that do not produce eicosanoids-prostaglandins and leukotrienes."
