Delayed haemolytic action of palytoxin. General characteristics

1. Palytoxin is a haemolysin. The erythrocytes from various species can be classified into a sensitive and a hardly sensitive group. The former contain potassium as their main inside cation and are arranged according to their sensitivity as hog greater than or equal to rat, mouse greater than rabbit greater than guinea-pig greater than man. The latter, comprising those from sheep and cattle, have sodium as their main inside cation. In addition, chicken erythrocytes are relatively insensitive. 2. Haemolysis of rat erythrocytes is preceded by a lag period of 1--2 h. With increasing temperature the haemolysis proceeds more quickly but reaches the same final range between 25 and 42 degrees C. The pH optimum in Britton-Robinson buffer supplemented with saline is between 7 and 8. Washing off palytoxin during the prelytic period reduces the haemolytic power. 3. The sensitivity of rat erythrocytes decreases with increase of osmolarity between 235 and 415 mosM. Accordingly, their osmotic resistance is lowered by palytoxin in a concentration-dependent manner. 4. With both rat and sheep erythrocytes, potassium loss by far precedes the haemolysis due to palytoxin. Potassium loss is measurable already after 1 min and increases with time. After 2 hours the quotient between the ED50 of haemolysis and that of potassium loss is around 200. Thus palytoxin is an unusually strong but slow haemolysin of the osmotic type. The extreme prelytic potassium loss and the correlation between susceptibility and potassium content of erythrocytes points towards the relevance of ionic fluxes.