Sulphydryl Reagents and Rh Activity of Erythrocyte Stroma

Abstract

IT has recently been shown that the Rh activity of lyophilized human Rh-positive stroma could be abolished with certain sulphydryl reagents, that this could be prevented by the concurrent addition of excess thiol, and that the loss was reversible with one such reagent¹. It was not established whether the antigenic activity of non-lyophilized erythrocytes shows such an effect. The resolution of this problem was hampered in the case of intact cells by the presence of soluble sulphydryl systems, including haemoglobin and glutathione², and in the case of non-lyophilized stroma both by the occlusion of these soluble components, and by the difficulty of quantitation of wet stroma. The results of the present experiments suggest that the loss of Rh activity of lyophilized stroma brought about by sulphydryl reagents is equally true of stroma which has not been lyophilized.