Erythrocyte membrane properties of the chronic alcoholic rat

There is growing evidence for essential or genetic hypertension to be associated with certain membrane abnormalities. We have published previous results on biochemical studies performed on erythrocyte membranes of the Okamoto-Aoki spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) and its normotensive control the WKY, reporting evidence of structural and functional alterations in the membranes. These changes could lead to increased calcium permeability and possibly compensatory increase in calcium pump activity that we observed concurrently. Chronic ethanol consumption resulted in mild hypertension in the rats used in the present study. The elevation in blood pressure is not associated with gross membrane changes in the erythrocyte. We noticed, however, that there is a slight elevation in the high affinity Ca2+/Mg2+-ATPase activities together with a trend towards higher osmotic fragility in the red cells of the ethanol-treated rats when compared with controls. These changes could be the result of concurrent reduction in plasma and membrane cholesterol contents also observed in the ethanol-treated animals.