Ageing in vivo and neuraminidase treatment of rabbit erythrocytes: influence on half-life as assessed by 51Cr labelling.

Old and young rabbit erythrocytes, separated by centrifugation, contained different respective activities of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, pyruvate kinase and acetylcholinesterase, and different quantities of stromal sialic acid. A systematic study of the survival rate of young and old erythrocytes incubated with different amounts of Vibrio cholerae neuraminidase is described. The half-life of intact old erythrocytes is significantly shorter than that of young erythrocytes with a similar sialic acid content.