Haemoglobin formation in rabbits

Abstract

Ashby (1919) the survival of cells derived from a blood group 0 donor and injected into a blood group A recipient were subjected to a mathematical analysis by Callender, Powell & Witts (1945) who found an average life span of 120 days. A similar result using an identical mathematical treatment was obtained by Jope (1946) who estimated the disappearance of sulphaemoglobin from the blood of subjects who had been in contact with trinitrotoluene immediately before the beginning of the experiment. The assumption implied in both methods is that the labelled cells have the same life span as the normal cells of the experimental subject. Shemin & Rittenberg (1946a, b) measured the rate of disappearance of 15N in the haemin isolated from subjects given isotopic glycine and showed that the average 'life span' of the haemoglobin molecule is about 120-125 days. A similar figure was obtained by Gray, Neuberger & Sneath (1950) who followed the "5N content of the stercobilin excreted by a normal subject fed isotopic glycine. The good agreement found between methods employing isotopic and non-isotopic labelling indicates that the haemoglobin in the circulating red cell of man is metabolically inert until the cell disintegrates. Isotope methods are more accurate than the other labelling techniques and give more detailed information about the distribution of life spans in a red cell population. The assumption which is made with all four methods that the rates of daily production and destruction are constant and equal, appears to be justified, at least in man, by the remarkable success which has been achieved in the quantitative interpretation of the data.Reliable data for few species other than man are available. Hawkins & Whipple (1938), working with bile fistula dogs, measured the interval between maximum regeneration of blood after bleeding or phenylhydrazine administration and the peak of increased excretion of bile pigments, and deduced from their results that the average life span of the dog red cell is about 125 days. Rittenberg & Bloch (1949), using the rate of incorporation of deuteriumlabelled acetate into the haem of the haemoglobin, estimated the average life span of the red cell of the rat to be about 100 days.The present paper is concerned with haemoglobin formation in the rabbit and the life span of the rabbit erythrocyte. Previous estimates of the latter vary within wide limits. Eaton & Damren (1930) found that after a haemorrhage rabbits show two or three reticulocyte responses, the second and third occurring about 8-17 days respectively after the first reticulocyte peak. They assumed that these later increases of reticulocytes are caused by the death of cells formed immediately after haemorrhage. It was deduced that the life span of these cells and presumably also of normal rabbit red cells is 8-9 days. Kurtz (1937) King & Gilchrist (1947). On this basis, provided that rabbit and human haemoglobin have the same mol. wt. and identical haem contents, a haemoglobin content of 100 % corresponds to 14-8 g.haem...

Hemolysis of “stress” reticulocytes: a source of erythropoietic bilirubin formation

“…The findings, therefore, are consistent with the concept that erythroid stimulation leads to the formation of macrocytic reticulocytes with a shortened lifespan (36)(37)(38)(39)(40). They do no exclude the possibility (41) that these cells survive normally and achieve normal size through loss of hemoglobinized cytoplasm, although radioautographic studies (40) support the first conclusion.…”

Erythrocyte Life Span in Growing Swine as Determined by Glycine-2-C14

“…The "mean survival time," determined by the method of Neuberger and Niven (19), represents the time interval between the appearance and disappearance of cells containing half of the maximum label determined at the appropriate time during the study.…”

“…The possibility of C 14 turnover through a non-heine compartment of the red cell is ruled out by the similarity of the curves and constants for hemoglobin and heine specific activity in the swine in which the specific activity in both of these substances was measured. Neuberger and Niven (19) showed by the use of N15-1abelled glycine that the life span of erythrocytes which are rapidly produced in rabbits subjected to acute hemorrhage is considerably shortened. Berlin and Lotz (22) confirmed this work in the rat by the use of glycine-2-C 14.…”

Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase Activity of Blood. I. Erythrocytes 1

“…It has been demonstrated in the rabbit and the rat that cells which are rapidly produced are destroyed in a random fashion and survive in the circulation for a shorter time than do cells which are produced at the normal rate (20,21 ). If the same holds true for the dog, whose normal erythrocyte life span is about 100 days (22), the slow exponential type of decay curve of PNP activity over a period of about 70 days depicted in Figure 5 suggests that the increased PNP activity remained in the rapidly produced cells of the dog for the duration of their survival.…”