Catalatic activity of immature and mature red blood cells in Japanese acatalasemia (difference between Japanese and Swiss acatalasemia)

We fractionated the red cells of Japanese acatalasemic individuals (four individuals in two families) by SAss's method and counted the number of reticulocytes and determined the catalatic activity by manometric and perborate methods on each fraction containing reticulocytes in the descending order from the upper to the lower layers. We also incubated each of these fractions at 37°C for 4, 10,24 and 48 hours, to see the catalatic activity along with the maturation of reticulocytes. Heat stability of catalatic fraction separated by DEAE column was also examined. The results of the study may briefly be summarized as follows. 1. a. There was no parallel relationship between the number of reticulocytes and the catalatic activity in Japanese acatalasemic red cells. b. There could be seen no decrease in catalatic activity while the number of reticulocytes did decrease by the incubation. 2. Heat stability of crude catalatic fraction from acatalasemic blood is approximately the same as that of crude catalase fraction from normal blood.