Abstract
In order to investigate the inhibitory effect of guanidine compounds (GC) on erythropoiesis, plasma levels of guanidine (G), methyl guanidine (MG) and guanidine succinic acid (GSA) were compared with colony forming uniterythroid counts corrected by plasma concentration of erythropoietin in hemodialysis patients with chronic renal failure (CRF).
Each GC was measured by HPEC and was found to be significantly elevated, e.g. G: 2.17±0.63nmol/ml, MG: 4.93±1.71nmol/ml and GSA: 14.48±4.26nmol/ml.
The CFU-E count was assayed by an in vitro culture method using fetal mouse liver cells, and the plasma concentration of EPO was determined by radioimmunoassay (RIA).
A corrected count of CFU-E was expressed in terms of CFU-E/log [EPO] and was significantly depressed in patients, 68.5±8.36/3×103, as compared with the control value of 194.9±4.7/3×103 (n=19).
Comparative analysis between plasma levels of GC and CFU-E/log [EPO] showed a weak negative correlation, which was not statistically significant.
Based on the present results, we could not confirm whether GC has a provable inhibitory effect on erythropoiesis in patients on maintenance hemodialysis.
