Figure 5.

Heme degradation increase during in vitro aging of RBCs. RBCs were incubated and fluorescence intensity, as a measure of heme degradation, was measured at various times. The basal fluorescence intensity at zero time was subtracted from the fluorescence at each time point. A single experiment was performed with red blood cells of 4–6 animals from each group pooled to use for incubation studies. A.U., Arbitrary units intensity. ■, Control; ▲ SOD knockout; ●, PRDX2 knockout. (A) Cells were incubated at 30°C in the absence of azide. (B) Cells were incubated at 37°C in the presence of 1 mM azide to inhibit catalase.