Spleen
organ recycling old red blood cells and also housing lymphocytes
The spleen (from Anglo-Norman espleen; ult. from Ancient Greek σπλήν, splḗn), or milt, is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter.
The spleen plays important roles in regard to red blood cells (erythrocytes) and the immune system. It removes old red blood cells and holds a reserve of blood, which can be valuable in case of hemorrhagic shock, and also recycles iron. As a part of the mononuclear phagocyte system, it metabolizes hemoglobin removed from senescent red blood cells. The spleen is a center of activity of the mononuclear phagocyte system and is analogous to a large lymph node, as its absence causes a predisposition to certain infections. The globin portion of hemoglobin is degraded to its constitutive amino acids, and the heme portion is metabolized to bilirubin, which is removed in the liver.
The spleen contains red and white pulp, which have distinct purposes contributing to adaptive and innate immunity. The white pulp houses T lymphocytes in periarteriolar lymphoid sheaths (PALS) situated around central arterioles and B lymphocytes in follicles adjacent to PALS. This positioning allows the B lymphocytes to encounter blood-borne antigens, which activate B cells to differentiate into plasma cells.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9371. The Library of Congress control number is sh85126812. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spleen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.