Lead (Pb) is a common metal, which can be toxic to the human body via the pollution of water or food, and can cause anemia and other diseases. However, what happens before hemolysis and anemia caused by Pb poisoning is unclear. Here, we demonstrated Pb can cause procoagulant activity of erythroid cells leading to thrombosis before hemolysis. In freshly isolated human erythroid cells, we observed that Pb resulted in hemolysis in both concentration- and time-dependent manners, but that no lysis occurred in Pb-exposed erythroid cells (≤20 μM for 1 h). Pb treatment did not cause shape changes at up to 0.5 h incubation but at 1 h incubation echinocyte and echino-spherocyte shape changes were observed, indicating that Pb can exaggerate a concentration- and time-dependent trend of shape changes in erythroid cells. After Pb treatment, ROS-independent eryptosis was shown with no increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS), but with an increase of [Ca2+]i and caspase 3 activity. With a thrombosis mouse model, we observed increased thrombus by Pb treatment (0 or 25 mg/kg). In brief, prior to hemolysis, we demonstrated Pb can cause ROS-independent but [Ca2+]i-dependent eryptosis, which might provoke thrombosis.
Keywords: ROS-independent; eryptosis; intracellular calcium level; lead (Pb); shape changes; venous thrombosis mice model.