Erythrocyte energy metabolism in hereditary spherocytosis.

The incorporation of extracellular orthophosphate-(32)P into cellular ATP, 2,3-diphosphoglyceric acid, and inorganic phosphate has been measured over a period of 6 hours in vitro in red blood cells from normal subjects and from patients with hereditary spherocytosis who had undergone splenectomy. The pattern of labeling of the intracellular compounds was found to be the same in both types of red blood cells, as reported by other workers using much shorter periods of incubation. In addition, in the present study it was possible to compare the net flux of extracellular phosphate into ATP between the two groups of erythrocytes. These latter results suggest that the actual turnover rate of ATP was not abnormal in these patients with hereditary spherocytosis.