GENETICS, PREVALENCE AND CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RED CELL ENZYME, GLUCOSE-6-PHOSPHATE DEHYDROGENASE DEFICIENCY

A number of metabolic diseases have been diasnosed and relegated to a specific enzymatic defect in red blood cells. Thus enzymopathies have attained considerable significance in clinical medicin during recent years. The discovery that primaquine-induced haemolytic anaemia was associated with an inherited deficiency of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (D-glucose-6-phosphate:NADP oxidoreductase,E.C.1.1.1.49) in red blood cells (Carson et al.,1956) led to many investigations of the genetic variants of this enzyme in man and its clinical significance.