Effects of anesthetics on sulfate transport in the red cell.

We measured the effect of anesthetics on sulfate transport in the human erythrocyte and have found that a wide variety of chemical classes of anesthetics, including the anesthetic steroid alphaxalone, inhibit sulfate transport in human erythrocytes at concentrations paralleling the concentrations that block nerve conduction. These experiments suggest that anesthetics act through a general mechanism and that the sulfate transport system in the red blood cell is a good model for studying the mechanism of action of anesthetics.