Determination of platelet adhesion to polyethylene and heparinized surfaces with the aid of bioluminescence and 51chromium labelled platelets.

A simple, rapid and highly sensitive method, which utilizes the light emission reaction between ATP and the firefly enzyme system luciferin-luciferase, was used to measure the degree of platelet adhesion to polyethylene surfaces after their in vitro contact with blood. The measurements showed a highly significant correlation between the surface content of ATP and the number of surface adhered platelets, which was determined with the aid of 51 Cr-labelled platelets. There was, however, always an additional non-platelet associated contribution of ATP, which was considered to originate from an initial and rapid adhesion of leucocytes. On the glutardialdehyde-stabilized heparin surface, the total surface content of ATP was below 1% in comparison with untreated polyethylene, which demonstrated that no significant adhesion of any cells had occurred. ATP-determinations proved to have a lower detection limit than those based on 51 Cr-labelled platelets.