Blood, 1959, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 386-398.
© 1959 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
The Effect of Anemic Anoxia on the Cellular
Development of Nucleated Red Cells
ALLAN J. ERSLEV 1 and
Elva Ruiz 1
1 Thorndike Memorial Laboratory and Second and Fourth (Harvard) Medical
Services, Boston City Hospital, and the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
Boston, Mass.
The action of an anoxic stimulus on red cell production was studied in
rabbits bled 20 ml./Kg., kept anemic for 20 hours and then reinfused with the
previously removed blood. This 20-hour period of anemic anoxia was followed
by a characteristic reticulocyte response, a response which was modified by
nitrogen mustard or colchicine administered immediately after the 20-hour
period of anemia, but was not influenced by anoxia or hyperoxia in the postanemic period. When mitotic division was arrested by colchicine during the
20-hour period of anemic anoxia, the onset of the reticulocyte response,
though delayed by 1 to 2 days, was otherwise of characteristic magnitude.
These observations indicate that (1) the anoxic stimulus operates in the
bone marrow by accelerating the differentiation of stem cells into pronormoblasts, and that thereafter (2) the maturation and multiplication of differentiated nucleated red cells proceed at fixed rates independent of the anoxic
stimulus.
Submitted on June 18, 1958
Accepted on July 29, 1958
