Erythropoiesis, erythropoietin and red cell survival
How the kidney senses oxygen through HIF and sets erythropoietin, the stages and timing of red cell production, how to judge the marrow response with the reticulocyte production index, the metabolism and membrane that keep a red cell alive for 120 days, and what happens when it dies.
Tier 2Medical sciences concept
Written with AI assistance and fact-checked against the sources below. For exam study, not clinical decisions. How notes are made
At a glance
- Red cell mass is set by erythropoietin (EPO), made in the kidney in response to tissue oxygen, not haemoglobin directly.
- Maturation from proerythroblast to reticulocyte takes about 5 to 7 days; from BFU-E, the earliest committed progenitor, it takes 2 to 3 weeks. The reticulocyte spends 1 to 2 days in marrow and about a day in blood.
- A red cell lives about 120 days. It has no nucleus or mitochondria and runs on glycolysis and the hexose monophosphate shunt.
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Sources
- Hoffbrand's Essential Haematology (8th ed.)Wiley-Blackwell (Hoffbrand and Steensma, 2019), 2019
- Postgraduate Haematology (7th ed.)Wiley-Blackwell (Hoffbrand, Higgs, Keeling and Mehta, 2016), 2016
- Regulation of erythropoietin productionJournal of Physiology (Jelkmann, 2011;589:1251-1258), 2011
- Identification of erythroferrone as an erythroid regulator of iron metabolismNature Genetics (Kautz et al., 2014;46:678-684), 2014
- Last updated
- 14 November 2026
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