[Enzyme activity of isolated leukocyte populations. II. Cytochemical and zymographic studies of cadaver blood].

Blood was taken from the femoral vein of 17 autopsied cadavers with different diagnoses and postmortal intervals (10-120 h). The granulocytes and lymphocytes were isolated with routine methods. The cell suspensions were subject to morphologic, enzyme-cytochemical (naphthol AS-D chloroacetate esterase) and electrophoretic (PGM1, PGM3, GOTM, PEPA, MEM, FUCA) investigations. The following results were obtained: Erythrocyte-free cell suspensions are only found during short postmortal intervals; Isolation of pure lymphocytes from cadaver blood using the described method is only possible very early in the postmortal interval (within 10 h); The isolated granulocytes contain an impressively high percentage of eosinophilic granulocytes; The percentage of naphthol AS-D-chloroacetate esterase-positive granulocytes is considerably lower in stored, conserved blood than in blood smears; Identification of the above mentioned enzymes from isolated granulocytes from all cadavers is possible by electrophoresis.