The turnover of erythrocyte glutathione in the rat.

Several observations have been reported which suggest that the intact rat erythrocyte is able to synthesize and destroy glutathione (GSH). Anderson and Mosher (1) detected radioactivity in the erythrocyte GSH of rats following the administration of Wlabeled cystine. In this laboratory it has been observed that C14-labeled glycine is rapidly incorporated into the GSH of rat red cells in vitro (2). Furthermore, erythrocyte GSH levels have been found to undergo large changes as a result of adding and withdrawing methionine dietary supplements (3). In view of these observations, it seemed of interest to investigate further the rate of GSH metabolism in the rat erythrocyte. In the present study the rate of disappearance from erythrocytes of previously labeled endogenous GSH was measured. At the same time, the distribution of radioactivity among the component amino acids was studied by chromatographic methods. The erythrocyte GSH was labeled by injecting labeled glycine.