Enzyme activities in rabbit, guinea pig, rat and mouse blood cells after separation on a discontinuous Percoll...

A technique is described which allows a fractionation of rabbit, guinea pig, rat and mouse blood cells using a discontinuous Percoll gradient. With only two steps of centrifugation a simultaneous isolation of thrombocytes, mononuclear cells, polymorphonuclear cells, and erythrocytes in nearly pure form is performed in a very short time, starting from only 1 ml of blood. In these morphologically almost homogeneous cell fractions the activities of 12 enzymes were determined. The enzyme pattern, which with respect to the number of enzymes, specific cell populations and species was not yet investigated to such an extent, revealed a manifold higher enzyme content in the few cases, in which comparative studies were made. This can be attributed mainly to the completeness of the cell disruption technique using a detergent and certainly also to the use of Percoll as a preferable gradient material.