Phosphate compounds in the erythrocytes of newborns with ABO systems haemolytic disease.

The following phosphate compounds of the erythrocyte acid-soluble fraction were subjected to chromatographic separation: ADP, ATP, adenylo-diphosphoglycerate, 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, hexose monophosphate, hexose diphosphate. In each of the fractions total phosphorus, and in fraction II inorganic phosphorus, were estimated. The material was derived from ten newborns with haemolytic disease as a result of ABO incompatability and from ten full-term healthy newborns, just after birth. The concentration of the compounds assayed, except for 2,3-DPG (the values in both groups were similar) was higher in the erythrocytes from affected newborns, but lower than that found in the material derived from the newborns with Rh incompatibility. It is suggested that the metabolism of erythrocytes of the newborns with haemolytic ABO disease may be somewhat different from that in Rh incompatibility cases because in the former the haemolysis is weaker, the anaemia is less pronounced and the tissue hypoxia is of a smaller degree.