Abstract
Strong evidence indicates that erythropoietin (Epo) is eliminated via Epo receptors (EpoR). Epo receptors may be classified as erythropoietic receptors that are largely located on erythroid progenitor cells in the bone marrow (BM) and nonerythropoietic receptors present in most tissues. Epo's elimination kinetics was studied using a very sensitive tracer interaction method (TIM) before and after chemical ablation of BM as an indirect way of evaluating the EpoR through an assortment of pharmacokinetic parameters (VM, KM, K, and CL) used in differentiating the EpoR population in newborn and adult sheep. TIM identified a parallel nonlinear Michaelis-Menten (VM and KM), and linear (K) elimination pathway and found the latter pathway to be significantly (p < 0.01) more dominant in lamb: K/(VM/KM + K) = 0.309 (25.3) versus 0.0895 (18.4) mean (CV%) lambs versus adult sheep. The significantly (p < 0.01) larger total clearance found for lambs indicates a larger nonhematopoietic tissue clearance of Epo (CL = 118 (10.9) ml/h/kg versus 67.8 (19.3) lamb versus adult sheep). The VM/KM ratio for the nonlinear pathway was not found to be significantly different (p > 0.05) between newborn and adults with values of 1.10 (15.8) and 1.30 (3.81) h–1, respectively. We proposed the hypothesis that the linear pathway is via nonhematopoietic EpoR. Assuming that Epo's elimination largely depends not only on erythropoietic EpoR but also on nonhematopoietic EpoR, this work shows a significant difference in the relative proportions of the two EpoR populations in lamb and adult sheep. The larger dominance of the nonhematopoietic EpoR in lamb supports the hypothesis that these receptors are more needed in early life, e.g., providing neuroprotection from perinatal hypoxemic-ischemic episodes.
Footnotes
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ABBREVIATIONS: Epo, erythropoietin; EpoR, erythropoietin receptor; PK, pharmacokinetics; TIM, tracer interaction method; r-HuEpo, recombinant human erythropoietin; RIA, radioimmunoassay; CFU-E, colony-forming unit-erythroids; BFU-E, burst forming units erythroids; BM, bone marrow; CL, clearance; ERD, Epo receptor development.
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This work was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service National Institute of Health Grants P01 HL46925, R21, and GM57367, and Grant RR000359 from the General Clinical Research Center Program, National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health.
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DOI: 10.1124/jpet.103.052431.
- Received April 1, 2003.
- Accepted April 28, 2003.
- The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
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