[Acid-induced hemolysis of human erythrocytes]

The acid-induced haemolysis of human erythrocytes has been studied in the isoosmotic media (0.14 M NaCl) at pH 2.0-3.5. The apparent rate constant of this process increased and the time of lysis of half of the cells decreased after spectrin denaturation in the presence of ethanol. The time of the haemolysis diminished in the presence of human serum albumin, which interacted with the cell surface, and after erythrocyte modification by glutaric aldehyde. On the contrary, the hyperosmotic contraction of erythrocytes in the NaCl, KCl, or sucrose containing medium stabilized the cells. The activation energy of the process of acid-induced haemolysis determined by the temperature dependence of the haemolysis time was 69 +/- 4 kJ/mol. The cell volume increasing which induced by proton increasing, occurred at higher pH values (pH 5.5-5.0) as compared with pH inducing cell lysis. We suggest that not only osmotic mechanism takes part in the acid-induced haemolysis.