The Effect of Mustard Gases upon a Property of Nucleated Erythrocytes and Their Ghosts.

uses of ailcylating reagents (1, 10) including those derived from the sulfur and nitrogen mustard gases, is the occasion for the publication of the details of an investigation conducted between 1943 and 1946 in the Department of Chemistry of New York University College of Medicine under a contract with OSRD (OEM8r1O5O). The material has been set forth in a final report (OSRD No. 6665) which has been referred to in the open literature (3, 8). It does suggest an approach to the problem of the effect of mustards on cells substantially different from the one currently considered, which is that the reaction of the alkylating agent with nucleoprotein, usually deoxyribo nucleic acid (DNA), is primary to all effects, cytostatic, mutagenic, and cytotoxic (10, p. 92). The experimental base of the different approach is that a measurable physical property of the membranes or stroma undergoes a rapid and substantial change on