The effects of nucleosides on phosphate and pentose metabolism in erythrocyte ghosts.

Erythrocyte ghosts have been found to be peculiarly useful for the study of the metabolism of nucleosides (1, 2). Preparations made by osmotic hemolysis were found to be unable to metabolize glucose. Adenosine, however, caused a disappearance of inorganic phosphate from ghost plasma suspensions with an equivalent production of organic acid-soluble ester phosphate. There was a simultaneous disappearance of nucleoside pentose. The data reported here extend the previous study to include other nucleosides and to measure some comparative effects of erythrocytes with those of ghosts. Further evidence for the metabolic utilization of inorganic phosphate by the ghosts is provided by measurements of the activation energy of inorganic phosphate disappearance from ghost plasma suspensions.