Warburg's studies (9) on the metabolism of tumor cells have stimulated great interest in similar studies of the blood corpuscles. Grafe (1) has shown that leucocytes consume considerable amounts of oxygen. Although it had previously been known that they are capable of splitting sugar, it remained for Levene and Meyer (2) to demonstrate their ability to produce lactic acid from dextrose. Maclean and Weir (3), in comparing the glycolytic power of leucocytes and erythrocytes, found that the former have a glycolytic power several hundred times greater than the latter. Metabolic studies have been carried out with a view of determining the oxygen consumption and sugar destruction of leucocytes, and of mature as compared with that of immature white corpuscles. These studies have yielded contradictory results. Daland and Isaacs (4) as well as Glover, Daland and Schmitz (5) concluded that mature leucocytes consume greater amounts of oxygen than do immature white cells. The latter investigators (5) also concluded that the glycolytic function of the leucocytes, at least in whole blood, is inversely proportional to the maturity of the cells. These findings could not be confirmed by Barron and Harrop (6), who emphasized the depressing effect of concentration on both the oxygen consumption and sugar destruction of white blood cells.The object of this paper is to study further, with improved technic, the effect of cell maturity and cell concentration on the metabolic activity of leucocytes.
METHODWhole blood containing varying numbers of leucocytes from patients suffering from myeloid and lymphoid leukemia and from cases of leucocytosis due to various causes was studied. Arterial blood was collected in most instances. This was done to avoid the injury to the cells which results from manipulation incidental to aeration of venous blood. Samples were collected in purified heparin and immediately studied. Oxygen consumption was determined in Barcroft-Warburg manometers at 37.5°C., the readings being taken at 5 minute intervals for 30 minutes. Sugar determinations were made immediately before placing the samples in the microrespirometers, and directly after the experiment. The samples to be studied were subjected to as little manipulation as possible and centrifuging was entirely avoided in view of its damaging effects on the respiration and to a lesser extent on the glycolytic activity of the white blood cells, as demonstrated by Fujita (7). Varying 43 661