The effect of cyanide on the uptake of gold by red blood cells.

Cyanide markedly increased the rate of uptake of gold by red blood cells when incubated with sodium aurothiomalate, a polymeric gold complex. Thiocyanate had no significant effect on gold uptake. The effect of cyanide was demonstrated to be due to the conversion of aurothiomalate to the complexion, aurocyanide, which is rapidly taken up by red blood cells. At a low ratio (1:20) of cyanide to aurothiomalate, cyanide appeared to act as a shuttle to carry gold into red blood cells. Tobacco smoking is known to increase the concentrations of gold in red blood cells in patients treated with aurothiomalate. The present data indicate that this effect of smoking is most likely due to cyanide inhaled in tobacco smoke and not to thiocyanate, a circulating metabolite of cyanide. An effect of cyanide on the uptake of polymeric gold complexes to target cells such as polymorphonuclear leukocytes and monocytes is suggested.