Release of adenosine triphosphate by adenosine diphosphate in whole blood and in erythrocyte suspensions

In whole blood samples from thrombocytopenic patients, large amounts of ATP were released by ADP, exceeding the level obtained with samples from normal persons by far. Because we suspected that the high potential of ATP in erythrocytes would be the main source for this phenomenon, the release of ATP by ADP was measured in whole blood samples from normal, thrombocytopenic, and leukocytopenic persons and in suspensions of washed erythrocytes. The release was recorded by a Whole Blood Lumi-Aggregometer type 500 VS (Chrono-Log Corporation, Havertown, PA) using the luciferin-luciferase system. Not only in samples from thrombocytopenic persons but also with normal platelet count, increasing amounts of ATP were released with increasing ADP concentrations, finally exceeding the ATP releasable from thrombocytes by thrombin. The amounts of ADP required to match the ATP release of thrombin were closely correlated with the platelet counts in the samples. With lower platelet counts, the release mechanism from erythrocytes could be stimulated more easily by low concentrations of ADP. The binding of ADP to platelets occurred with ostensibly higher affinity. The phenomenon of overshooting ATP release was also observed in samples from extremely leukocytopenic patients. A very large release of ATP was also achieved in suspensions of washed erythrocytes. In this way our hypothesis of ATP release from erythrocytes by ADP was confirmed again. The mechanism of the release from erythrocytes remains unclear. We speculate that its purpose is to regulate extracellular nucleotides in the circulating blood.