Glyceraldehyde and other simple monosaccharides autoxidize under physiological conditions, forming dicarbonyl compounds and hydrogen peroxide via intermediate free radicals. These products may have deleterious effects on cell components. In this paper we study the effect of glyceraldehyde autoxidation on red-cell ATPase activities. The autoxidation of glyceraldehyde in imidazole-glycylglycine buffer, measured by oxygen consumption, depends on the buffer concentration and decreases in the presence of superoxide dismutase and catalase. The addition of DETAPAC inhibits the autoxidation almost completely. When human red-blood-cell membranes are incubated with glyceraldehyde, the red-blood-cell ATPase activities decrease significantly. The addition of DETAPAC, GSH and DTE (dithioerythritol) protects the enzyme from inactivation, but superoxide dismutase and catalase have no effect. Methylglyoxal (a dicarbonyl which is analogous to hydroxypyruvaldehyde derived from glyceraldehyde autoxidation) proved to have a powerful inhibitory action on ATPase activities. The addition of DTE completely protects the enzyme from inactivation, suggesting that the sulphydryl groups of the active site of the enzyme are the critical targets for dicarbonyl compounds.