Lack of Stability of Aggregates after Thrombin-Induced Reaggregation of Thrombin-Degranulated Platelets

The stability of platelet aggregates is influenced by the extent of the release of granule contents; if release is extensive and aggregation is prolonged, deaggregation is difficult to achieve. The relative importance of the contributions of released substances to aggregate stability are not known, although stable thrombin-induced aggregates form in platelet-rich plasma from patients with barely detectable plasma or platelet fibrinogen, and ADP stabilizes thrombin-induced aggregates of platelets from patients with delta storage pool deficiency which otherwise deaggregate more readily than normal platelets. We degranulated platelets with thrombin (0.9 U/ml caused greater than 90% loss of delta and alpha granule contents) and recovered them as individual platelets in fresh medium. The degranulated platelets were reaggregated by thrombin (2 U/ml). To prevent continuing effects of thrombin, FPRCH2Cl was added when thrombin-induced aggregation of thrombin-degranulated platelets reached its maximum. EDTA (5 mM) or EGTA (5 mM) added at maximum aggregation did not deaggregate these platelets, indicating that the stability of these aggregates does not depend on Ca2+ in the medium. Whereas with control platelets a combination of PGE1 (10 microM) and chymotrypsin (10 U/ml) was required for deaggregation, with thrombin-degranulated platelets either PGE1 or chymotrypsin alone caused extensive deaggregation. The rate and extent of deaggregation of thrombin-degranulated platelets by a combination of PGE1 and chymotrypsin was greater than with control platelets.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)