Limited fibrinogenolysis in stored whole blood and in fresh frozen plasma.
Measurement of the F-CB3 related antigen of the fibrinogen alpha-chain shows a time dependent increase of fibrino(geno)lysis in whole blood during storage from 70.7 +/- 16.4 pmol/ml (day 2) to 356.3 +/- 110 pmol/ml (day 39). Simultaneously PMN-elastase increases from 95 +/- 44 micrograms/l (day 2) to 3492 +/- 954 micrograms/l (day 39). The significant correlation between PMN-elastase and F-CB3 values (n = 180, r = 0.73, p less than 0.001) may reflect a relationship between the liberation of granulocyte enzymes and the extent of fibrino(geno)lysis. The isolation and separation of fibrinogen material on SDS-PAGE indicates a limited degradation of the parent fibrinogen molecule (340 kD). During storage the fraction of slightly degraded fibrinogen (300 kD) and pre-X fragment (280 kD) increases. The separation of the reduced fibrinogen material demonstrates that the limited fibrinogenolysis mainly took place in the A alpha-chain. Additional studies on fresh frozen plasma show that PMN-elastase values (98.6 +/- 41.8 micrograms/l), F-CB3 values (84.8 +/- 31.2 pmol/ml) and the SDS-PAGE pattern of the fibrinogen material are similar to the results in whole blood stored for two days.