Question

What is the liquid part of the blood called? What is the function of platelets in the blood?

Answer 1

Hint: Blood may be a liquid body substance in humans and other animals that delivers necessary substances like nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products far away from those same cells. Invertebrates, it's composed of blood cells suspended in plasma.

Complete answer:
Our blood is made up of liquid and solids. The liquid part, called plasma, is made of water, salts, and protein. The main job of the plasma is to move blood cells throughout your body alongside nutrients, waste products, antibodies, clotting proteins, chemical messengers like hormones, and proteins that help maintain the body's fluid balance.

Platelet: Platelets, or thrombocytes, are small, colorless cell fragments in our blood that form clots and stop or prevent bleeding. Platelets are made in our bone marrow, the sponge-like tissue inside our bones. Bone marrow contains stem cells that become red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

Function:
- Secrete vasoconstrictors constrict blood vessels, causing vascular spasms in broken blood vessels.
- Form temporary platelet plugs to prevent bleeding.
- Secrete procoagulants (clotting factors) to push blood coagulation.
- Dissolve blood clots once they are not any longer needed.

Note: The plasma proteins interact in specific ways to cause the blood to coagulate, which is a component of the body’s response to injury to the blood vessels (also referred to as vascular injury) and helps protect against the loss of blood and invasion by foreign microorganisms and viruses. The process by which platelets form a clot is named adhesion. For instance, if we mistakenly cut our finger and rupture a vessel, it'll start to bleed. So as to prevent the bleeding, platelets within that broken vessel adhere to the location of the injury and send chemical signals for more help.