Characterization of marrow granulocyte development: enzyme-specific activity profiles in response to inflammatory reactions.

Isopycnic sedimentation has been used to separate granulocytes of varying stages of maturity from the bone marrows of normal rabbits and rabbits stimulated to undergo an intense inflammatory response. The separated cell populations were in turn utilized to study the specific activities of six intracellular enzymes. The study revealed an increase with cell maturation in the specific activities of myeloperoxidase, NADPH oxidase, alkaline phosphatase and acid phosphatase in normal animals; in stimulated animals only myeloperoxidase and NADPH oxidase increased significantly with cell maturation. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase showed no change in specific activity in all animals studied. Malate dehydrogenase tended to show a specific activity decrease in the maturing cells of normal but not in those of stimulated animals.