Biomolecular Components of Blood and Their Role in Health and Diseases

Blood is a vital, dynamic, and complex fluid that circulates through the circulatory system delivering essential substances to various tissues and organs in the body. It contains a diverse array of biomolecules that play a critical role in maintaining homeostasis, transporting oxygen and nutrients, and removing waste products. Essential components of blood include plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and serum. These components are supported or formed by biomolecules in the blood, namely, plasma proteins, clotting factors, hemoglobin, enzymes, lipids, glucose, electrolytes, hormones, cytokines, growth factors, nucleotides and nucleosides, and wasted products. While each component in blood has an important role and work in conjunction for proper physiological function, disruption in any of the component leads to a serious health condition such as anemia, hemoglobinopathies, bleeding disorders, leukemia, lymphoma, myeloproliferative disease, thrombocytopenia disseminated intravascular coagulation, hemolytic disease of new born, aplastic anemia, multiple myeloma, and various other hematological malignancies. In this chapter, we will try to take each biomolecular component into account and discuss its role in health and diseases.