Factors Influencing the Respiration of Erythrocytes

Abstract

1. The oxygen consumption of normal and "primitive red cells" of fowls' blood has been determined at intervals in the course of an anemia produced by the injection of phenylhydrazine. The "primitive red cells" have an oxygen consumption at least twenty to twenty-five times greater than the normal red cells. 2. Suspension of the cells derived from the blood in anemia in sodium chloride solutions of various concentrations has comparatively little effect upon the oxygen consumption of the cells. 3. The red cells from anemic blood are sensitive to variations in the reaction of the medium in which they are suspended. The maximum oxygen consumption, after addition of a saline solution containing variable amounts of acid to the blood, took place at pH 7.75. They appeared somewhat more sensitive to variations on the acid side of this reaction than on the alkaline. 4. Addition of glucose to the medium increased the oxygen consumption of the cells. Their metabolism in a physiological saline solution containing 0.6 per cent of glucose was 15 per cent higher than in one in which no glucose was present. 5. Certain amino acids in low concentrations had little effect on oxygen consumption, though at higher concentrations some of them definitely diminished it.