RATE OP PENETRATION OF IONS INTO ERYTHROCYTES 



503 



In the hemolysate, in the course of the experiment the amount of inor- 

 ganic P increases due to the successive decomposition of organic P com- 

 pounds. This fact leads to a corresponding decrease of the specific 

 activity of the inorganic P. When comparing the specific activity of the 

 pyrophosphate P split off by hydrolysis with the specific activity of 

 the inorganic P present in the hemolysate at the end of the experiment, 

 we, therefore, overestimate the extent of renewal of the adenosintri- 

 phosphate. 



The difference between the rate of resynthesis of the other P com- 

 pounds in the hemolysate and in the corpuscles is still larger than that 

 found in the case of adenosintriphosphate. In the corpuscles, after the 

 lapse of I5 hours, the activity of the P obtained by hydrolysis for 12 

 hours after removal of the pyrophosphate amounted to 57 per cent of 

 the activity of the inorganic P of the corpuscles. In the hemolysate, 

 in the course of 2 hours, the corresponding figure was only 5.8 per cent. 

 While, therefore, phosphorylation processes are going on in the hemo- 

 lysate, their rate remains much behind the corresponding processes 

 going on in the intact corpuscles. 



That the rate of resynthesis of organic P compounds is strongly reduced 

 in the hemolysate follows also from the fact that the hemolysate con- 

 tains more inorganic P and less organic P than intact blood^^). As shown 

 by using labelled P as an indicator, an alternative degradation and 

 resynthesis of adenosintriphosphate and also of other organic P com- 

 pounds takes place in the corpuscles and also in the hemolysate. In the 

 hemolysate the resynthesis obviously lacks behind the degradation and 

 the inorganic P content correspondingly increases in the course of the 

 experiment. 



The rate of resynthesis of organic P compounds in the hemolysate is 

 much reduced by lowering the temperature. As seen in Table 8, at 0° 



Table 8. — Effect of Temperature on the Formation of Labelled 

 Organic P Compounds in Rabbit Blood Hemolysate 



^^' A detailed study of the effect of hemolysis on the content of different P com- 

 pounds present in horse blood was recently made by Sjoberg (1940), comp. also 

 Solomon and co-workers (1940). 



