Rheological and biochemical examination of red blood cells after treatment with different pharmacological and toxic substances

Abstract

Rheological and enzymatic properties of red blood cells (RBC) were investigated in vitro after the treatment with vasoactive drug – buflomedil (bfl) and toxic substance – 2,3,7,8‐tetrachlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxin (TCDD). Studies with bfl included two different concentrations of the drug: 90 μg/ml of blood and 10 μg/ml of blood. The former concentration of the drug corresponds to the amount of bfl which is taken daily by a patient, the latter one is the highest peak of this drug in plasma. The dosage of dioxin was 32 μg/ml of blood and 32 ng/ml of blood. Only the smaller dosage of this compound appears in the environment but the higher one may occur in human organs because of its cumulation.

Rheological properties of erythrocytes were examined using a laser diffractometer Rheodyne SSD (Myrenne). The deformability of RBC was expressed as an elongation index IE which was counted from the equation: EI=(L−W)/(L+W) where L is the length of cell and W is the width of cell. As far as the impact of bfl on RBC rheology is concerned studies were conducted in two different ways: (1) RBC were incubated with bfl directly, (2) RBC before incubation with bfl were treated with diamide to cause their rigidity. The action of bfl seems to be not efficient enough as data are not statistically significant in those two cases. Enzymatic properties of RBC were investigated using the methods of Beutler [7]. The activity of three enzymes was measured (acetylcholinesterase – Ache, dehydrogenase glucoso‐6‐phosphate – G‐6‐PD and gluthatione reductase – GR) for both bfl and TCDD‐treated RBC. For TCDD‐treated RBC additionally malonyldialdehyde (MDA) level was assessed.