Erythropoietin production in response to anemia or hypoxia in the newborn rat

Erythropoietin production in response to hypoxic-hypoxia is markedly reduced in the newborn when compared to the adult rat. This response improves steadily with age and reaches adult values at about 4 wk. When animals of the same age are stimulated with anemic-hypoxia, considerably higher levels of erythropoietin are found. The erythropoietin level is proportional to the degree of anemia and independent of the age of the animal. Extraction of erythropoietin from tissue homogenates revealed a parallelism between the plasma and kidney erythropoietin content, while no erythropoietin could be extracted from liver tissue at any age. The lack of response to hypoxia in the newborn appears to be related to the high hemoglobin oxygen affinity during the neonatal period, which facilitates oxygen loading. Newborn rats have a very low intraerythrocytic concentration of 2–3 DPG and a marked shift to the left in the oxygen hemoglobin dissociation curve that slowly increases to adult values at 4 wk of age. The response to anemia on the other hand, appears to be normal and not affected by age or by hemoglobin oxygen affinity. These studies suggest that the newborn rat, when properly stimulated, is able to produce normal amounts of erythropoietin, most likely renal in origin.