[Comparative activity of erythrocyte 17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in man and the rat: effect of plasma]

Human erythrocytes, which contain an active 17 beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase, transform dehydroepiandrosterone, delta 4-androstenedione and estrone, more rapidly in buffered medium than when kept into plasma. The rat has a peculiar behaviour: the conversion of substrates is very high above the man's one, whether in buffered medium or in blood: the plasma influence is negligible. Plasma permutation reveals that the rat's one, which does not slow down the erythrocyte activity of the rat, slakens the man's one; the human plasma which slows up the human erythrocyte, has only a light action on the rat's one.