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Journal of Experimental Biology 29,605-619 (1952)
Published by Company of Biologists 1952

Various Types of Ghosts Derived from Human Red Cells: Heat Fragmentation and Phase Optics Studies

ERIC PONDER ¹

¹ The Nassau Hospital, Mineola, N.Y.

1. A large number of kinds of ghost, each with its own characteristic properties, can be prepared from human red cells. These ghosts, which differ from each other in their appearance as seen with phase optics, in their heat fragmentation, and probably in other respects also, are the result of the procedures used to prepare them (lysis by water as opposed to lysis in dilute saline, lysis followed by ‘reversal of haemolysis’ by phosphate or veronal buffers at various pH or by saturating the haemolysate with CO₂, lysis by freezing and thawing, lysis by chemical lysins, etc.). In view of this, it is meaningless to speak of the ‘red cell ghost’ and of its structure without further specification.

2. No entirely satisfactory explanation for the differences in heat fragmentation of the various kinds of ghost has been found. The best one is that fragmentation into stable fragments occurs when the ghost is discoidal and when it has a certain plasticity, the plasticity depending on the concentration of residual Hb. It is shown that heat fragmentation of red cells occurs maximally in a tonicity of about 1.5, i.e. when the Hb molecules are a certain optimal distance apart.

3. A number of other phenomena which occur optimally at certain values of tonicity, i.e. when the Hb molecules are neither too closely packed nor too widely separated, are described. Among these phenomena are mechanical fragility, the formation of typical sickles, resistance to certain lysins, and K-Na exchange. The various forms of disk-sphere transformation seem to have no tonicity dependence.