Blood, 1961, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 45-53.
© 1961 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
The Role of Haptoglobin in the Clearance and
Distribution of Extracorpuscular Hemoglobin
ROBERT K. MURRAY 1,
GEORGE E. CONNELL 1, and
JAMES H. PERT 1
1 Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and
National Headquarters, American Red Cross, Washington, D. C.
Free hemoglobin is cleared from the plasma of the rabbit significantly
faster than the hemoglobin-haptoglobin complex. This difference can be partly
attributed to the fact that free hemoglobin passes readily through the renal
glomerulus whereas the complex is too large to pass through. The liver is the
principal organ of hemoglobin-haptoglobin catabolism.
In the nephrectomized rabbit hemoglobin is cleared from the plasma significantly faster than the hemoglobin-haptoglobin complex, and both molecules
are catabolized in the same organs, principally the liver. The iron of both
hemoglobin and the complex is rapidly recirculated to the bone marrow via
transferrin.
Submitted on June 21, 1960
