Concordance between two methods of assaying the plasma effects on chicken erythrocyte metabolism

Abstract

IN THE previous communication, studies were reported describing the distribution of a plasma antibody among chronic schizophrenics, normal volunteers, and chronically hospitalized psychiatric patients with diagnoses other than schizophrenia.1 The plasma antibody had been previously shown to stimulate aerobic glycolysis of chicken erythrocytes through a mechanism associated with complement-linked immune lysis.2 By the biochemical assays used, it was not possible to distinguish schizophrenics from the other chronically hospitalized patients studied. The plasmas of normal volunteers tended to have a slightly lesser effect on chicken erythrocytes than did the plasmas of the other two groups. To interpret these findings and relate them to earlier reports of FROHMAN et a1.,3~4 it seemed desirable to compare the results obtained using our bioassay methods with those obtained in simultaneous studies by Frohman and his colleagues at the Lafayette Clinic. Collaborative studies were therefore undertaken with the Lafayette Clinic (L.C.) group. The two groups, using independent methods, tested simultaneously the plasmas of the same subjects to determine whether the rank order of results obtained by the method for estimating the terminal ratio of lactate to pyruvate (L/P) corresponded to the ranked results obtained using our method for measuring net lactate accumulation (AL). These studies were done in two parts. The first was conducted at the Northville State Hospital (Northville, Michigan) and the second at the Rockland State Hospital (Orangeburg, New York). The patients and volunteers used in the first part had been studied previously by FROHMAN and co-workers.374