Blood, 1959, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 635-643.
© 1959 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
Studies on Erythropoiesis. XI. Reticulocyte Response of
Transfusion-Induced Polycythemic Mice to Anemic Plasma
from Nephrectomized Mice and to Plasma from
Nephrectomized Rats Exposed to Low Oxygen
LEON O. JACOBSON 1,
EDNA K. MARKS 1,
EVELYN O. GASTON 1, and
EUGENE GOLDWASSER 1
1 Argonne Cancer Research Hospital, operated by The University of Chicago
for the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, and The Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Mice with transfusion-induced polycythemia have been used to assay
erythropoietic activity in plasma derived from mice and rats subjected to
various stimuli and experimental procedures.
1. Anemic, anoxic, or cobalt mouse plasma increased erythropoiesis from
the zero baseline to about the normal range after four 0.5 cc. injections.
No significant effect is observed from the same number of injections of normal
rat or mouse plasma or normal saline. Similarly, plasma from rats starved
for 4 days had no erythropoietic activity, but erythropoietic activity was
present in the plasma of pregnant mice during the last trimester of pregnancy.
2. Plasma from mice made anemic by phenylhydrazine and then subjected
to bilateral nephrectomy contained slight erythropoietic activity (less than
0.2 per cent reticulocytes). The plasma of sham-operated anemic animals had
considerably more erythropoietic activity (2.0 per cent). The plasma was
collected for assay 10 hours after the operative procedures.
3. Plasma from nephrectomized rats exposed to hypoxic anoxia for 8, 16,
or 24 hours, had slight erythropoietic activity when measured by the peripheral
reticulocyte response of the recipients (0.18, 0.11, and 0.00 per cent reticulocutes, respectively). The same plasma had no erythropoietic activity when
judged by the Fe59 red cell incorporation response in starved rats.
Plasma from rats subjected to bilateral ureter ligation and similarly exposed
had an erythropoietic activity (0.7, 1.38, and 1.26 per cent reticulocytes, respectively), comparable with that of the plasma from normal rats exposed to
hypoxic anoxia (0.9, 1.71, and 1.78 per cent, respectively). The low and inconstant erythropoietic activity in the plasma of nephrectomized mice and
rats subjected to anemic or hypoxic anoxia is more or less comparable with
the response occasionally produced by normal plasma. We are, therefore,
disinclined to consider the data as evidence against the renal origin of
erythropoietins, but the alternative possibilities are discussed.
Submitted on July 28, 1958
Accepted on December 9, 1958
