Blood, 1960, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 1298-1306.
© 1960 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
Studies on Erythropoietin. I. Demonstration
of Erythropoietin in Normal Plasma
MORRIS REICHLIN 1 and
WILLIAM J. HARRINGTON 1
1 Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine,
St. Louis, Mo.
1. A modification of a technic wherein hypertransfused rats are used for
the bioassay of erythropoietin is described, and some kinetics of iron incorporation following transfusion are presented.
2. It was possible to detect activity in normal plasma and demonstrate that
plasma of animals whose erythropoiesis is depressed below normal by hypertransfusion possesses less erythropoietin than normal plasma.
3. The variation of response under standardized conditions is sufficiently
small and sufficiently predictable so that within certain limits, quantitation is
possible. A dose-response analysis is presented.
4. Plasma from normal rats possesses approximately 25 per cent of the
activity found in rats rendered acutely anemic by a standardized blood loss.
Submitted on July 31, 1959
Accepted on April 21, 1960
