Intracellular Clinical Chemistry

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Abstract
The plasma compartment, on which almost all routine analyses in clinical chemistry are performed, occupies only a small part of the body, most of which consists of cells. For most components the intracellular and extracellular compartments have a different composition in health, and change differently in disease. The readily available cells are erythrocytes, and although these can be used for many purposes, including vitamin studies, they should not be used for studies of water and electrolytes. Muscle cells and leukocytes are the other available cells: they present different problems of isolation and methodology, but valid work has been done on their use for studies of water, electrolytes, and pH in health and disease. A recently developing study is the identification of inborn errors of metabolism by analysis of leukocytes and other cells. All cellular studies offer problems in that changes in one type of cell cannot necessarily be applied to changes in the cellular compartment of the body as a whole.

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