The limitation of the human neutrophil chemiluminescence response by extracellular peroxidase is stimulus dependent: effect of added horse radish peroxidase on the response induced by both soluble and particulate stimuli.

When polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNL) interact with soluble and particulate stimuli, the cells increase their production of oxidative metabolites. This increased production can be measured as luminol amplified light emission or chemiluminescence (CL). The CL response of human PMNL has been investigated, and it was found that the formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (FMLP) and the phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) induced responses were limited by the amount of available peroxidase, whereas the ionomycin induced response was unaffected by the amount of extracellular peroxidase. A small increase in the response induced by the Salmonella typhimurium MR10 bacteria upon addition of peroxidase was also observed. The results indicate that stimuli inducing an intracellular response in PMNL are insensitive to the amount of extracellularly released peroxidase, whereas the response induced by stimuli also generating an extracellularly located production of oxidative metabolites are highly influenced by the amount of peroxidase available extracellularly. Furthermore, the extracellularly localized peroxidase dependency is reduced at higher luminol concentrations. The use of the luminol-amplified chemiluminescence technique in various types of scientific investigations is discussed.