GC: n

S: NCBI – https://bit.ly/2B7UiVT (last access: 9 October 2019); URMC – https://bit.ly/2m0jbvT (last access: 9 October 2019).

N: 1. 1895, formed in English from “plate” (mid-13c., “flat sheet of gold or silver,” also “flat, round coin,” from Old French plate “thin piece of metal” (late 12c.), from Medieval Latin plata “plate, piece of metal,” perhaps via Vulgar Latin *plattus, formed on model of Greek platys “flat, broad” (from PIE root *plat- “to spread”).) + diminutive suffix “-let” (diminutive noun-forming element, Middle English, from Old French -elet, which often is a double-diminutive. It consists of Old French diminutive -et, -ette added to nouns in -el, which in many cases represents Latin diminutive -ellus. “The formation did not become common until the 18th c.” Oxford English Dictionary).
2. Platelet, also called thrombocyte, colourless, nonnucleated blood component that is important in the formation of blood clots (coagulation). Platelets are found only in the blood of mammals.
3. Platelets are formed when cytoplasmic fragments of megakaryocytes, which are very large cells in the bone marrow, pinch off into the circulation as they age. They are stored in the spleen. Some evidence suggests platelets may also be produced or stored in the lungs, where megakaryocytes are frequently found.
4. Platelets play an important role in the formation of a blood clot by aggregating to block a cut blood vessel and provide a surface on which strands of fibrin form an organized clot, by contracting to pull the fibrin strands together to make the clot firm and permanent, and, perhaps most important, by providing or mediating a series of clotting factors necessary to the formation of the clot. Platelets also store and transport several chemicals, including serotonin, epinephrine, histamine, and thromboxane; upon activation these molecules are released and initiate local blood vessel constriction, which facilitates clot formation.

S: 1. OED – https://bit.ly/33jHV50 (last access: 9 October 2019). 2 to 4. EncBrit – https://bit.ly/33siK02 (last access: 9 October 2019).

SYN: blood platelet, thrombocyte.

S: GDT – https://bit.ly/2Mbzh2R (last access: 9 October 2019)

CR: antiaggregant, anticoagulant, red blood cell, thrombocytopenia, thrombosis, white blood cell.