Age-development changes in susceptibility of erythrocytes to perfringolysin O

Susceptibility to perfringolysin O of erythrocytes from mice of different ages was examined. Erythrocytes of mice younger than 5 weeks' old were more resistant to the toxin than those of young adult and adult mice. Erythrocytes of aged mice were about 3.5 times more susceptible to the toxin than erythrocytes from 4-week-old mice. The membrane cholesterol content of erythrocytes appeared to be maintained at a constant level throughout the ages of mice examined. About 5% of the total membrane cholesterol was supposed to provide receptor sites for the toxin from an experiment in which cholesterol was specifically extracted by liposomes. It was demonstrated in this experiment that susceptibility of erythrocytes to the toxin was lost in proportion to the reduction in the toxin binding. The susceptibility, however, of erythrocytes from young or aged mice was much lower or higher than expected from the changes in toxin binding. Therefore, two possibilities were raised to account for age-related alterations in the susceptibility of erythrocytes; not only expansion of a particular compartment of membrane cholesterol as a toxin receptor but also some activation of intracellular reactions leading to hemolysis might occur in senescence.