Water relations in the malonamide-induced haemolysis of mammalian erythrocytes

A revised procedure is described for deriving enthalpy-entropy relations in the haemolysis kinetics of mammalian erythrocytes and its application demonstrates that previously reported linear enthalpy-entropy correlations are statistical artefacts with no real physical basis.Physically valid linear enthalpy-entropy relations do exist between species at constant osmotic concentration, but these are the result of the mutual dependence of the activation parameters on erythrocyte solvent volume. Non-linear enthalpy-entropy dependence on osmotic concentration, which is also physically valid and occurs within species, is attributed to erythrocyte solvent volume variation due to the osmotic properties of haemoglobin.Further development of the data indicates that malonamide-induced haemolysis is essentially an osmotic phenomenon and that the water permeability of all those cells is probably the same.From a consideration of the process in relation to the molecular dynamics of water it appears that the activation enthalpy, entropy and internal energy of haemolysis may refer to the molecular mobility of water during osmosis.