Year: 1962
Type: article
Abstract: Recent observations of the rate of glycine uptake into heme and globin during normal red cell ma- turation in man have led to the conclusion that heme and globin may be synthesized independently during the development of the mature erythrocyte (1).Globin appears to be maximally synthesized at a primitive stage of erythrocyte development with a nearly linear decline of synthetic rate as the cell matures, whereas heme is maximally synthe- sized midway in maturation with less activity both early and late in red cell development.With such data available, it was of interest to evaluate heme and globin synthesis in megaloblastic anemias in an attempt to define not only relative rates of heme and globin synthesis, but also to examine the erythrocyte maturation time and the in vivo insertion of iron into protoporphyrin in such disorders.The data reported in this paper represent the experience of this laboratory in studies of four patients with pernicious anemia of varying severity.These results and their interpretation are compared with similar data, derived from the study of normal patients, which have been previously reported (1). MATERIALS AND METHODSSubjects.The laboratory data supporting the diagno- sis of pernicious anemia in the four patients are pre- sented in Table I.All four patients received diets and fluids as desired throughout the studies.Transfusion therapy of 400 ml of packed red cells was given to Pa- tient 3 during the two days preceding the study.Pa- tient 2 received 1,000 pug of vitamin B,, subcutaneously 1 hour before radioactive isotopes were administered.The patients received 1.5 g sodium benzoate by mouth each day for assay of urinary hippuric acid specific activity.
DOI: 10.1172/jci104559
Authors: David G. Nathan, Frank H. Gardner
Institution: Harvard University
Language: English
Subfield: Rheumatology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2144202561