The heart production in energy-depleted human erythrocytes induced by glucose, inosine and adenine.

The heat production (HP) of glucose deprived human red blood cells was measured, using glucose, adenine and inosine as substrates. Inosine induced a significantly higher HP than glucose and adenine induced no significant HP. At low pH the HP of glucose decreased more than that of inosine, corresponding to an equally lowered lactate production. The results indicate that it should be possible to use the system developed to study the functional state both of the complete glycolytic system and the lower part of it in intact red blood cells during various clinical conditions.