From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.bio.misc,sci.chem,sci.physics,sci.med.psychobiology,
	alt.current-events.earth-changes
Subject: Re: Need Info On use of pig Hemaglobin in humans
Date: 31 Jan 1998 09:08:01 GMT

In <34D280B2.338B@ix.netcom.com> Uncle Al <UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com>
writes:

>Olestra is a financial cataclysm resistant to repackaging as all
>natural crankcase lube and not rectifiable as its pay by the
>squirt by lubricious squirt delivery in gay bathhouses.  Then
>again, there is no reason why fatty acids must be used to build
>Olestra-type molecules from sugar.  It is chemically forthright
>to start with sucrose or corn syrup, add ethylene oxide plus
>catalyst, and grow chains of PEO onto the sugar cores.  Said PEO
>is attached by robust ether linkages, allowing sugar aldehyde or
>ketone functionality to be hydrolytically unmasked in acid.
>Spontaneous Schiff base formation with pendant amino groups on
>the surfaces of polyhemoglobin molecules is secured by reductive
>alkylation to irreversibly close the links - Hemolestra(tm)!  It
>sounds like an exciting Spanish dance, doesn't it?
>
>Grafting to ordinary polyhemoglobin links one PEO chain/molecular
>attachment site on the fly.  It requires vigorous reaction
>conditions perhaps in special (expensive, environmentally
>hazardous, OSHA-regulated, cancer-causing, FDA not approved)
>solvent media to achieve dense derivatization.  The reaction
>product must be purified from byproduct gunk.  Hemolestra
>synthesis fastens up to eight PEO chains/attachment site in a
>spontaneous reaction in water.  The purification simplicities and
>economic advantages are obvious:  Do the aggressive chemistry on
>cheap sugar.  Tickle expensive and delicate polyhemoglobin to
>obtain the final product.

COMMENT

Very cute, and it continues the tradition of using the world's cheapest
complex pure organic chemical (sucrose-- think about it) to make other
things.  There's sucrose with fatty acids-- olestra.  There has for a
while been a GI drug called Carafate which is sucrose with sulfates and
aluminum hung on it (the first causes anal leakage, this one causes
constipation).  No you boldly propose hanging hemoglobins out there on
sucrose.  Bravo.

Alas, the reason the FDA doesn't like the present 4-chain hemoglobin
polymers, is that they leak into vessel walls, vacuum out nitric oxide
that's in there doing a job as a signal molecule vessel dilator, and
thereby cause everything to spasm.  Youch.  Think of the migraines.   A
bigger polymer of hemoglobin has a chance of not being as bad, but I'll
bet you need a HUGE bag of hemoglobins (an RBC) to really keep the
pesky molecules where they belong WITHIN the vascular space.

Hemoglobin in the body carries CO2, O2, and (unfortunately) NO.   "What
part of NO don't you understand" should have been on a few more
T-shirts to spread some hubris, before they made this latest hemoglobin
blood substitute.

                                   Steve Harris, M.D.