It has been hypothesized that the cytosolic esterase-induced fluorescence intensity (CEIFI) from carboxy dimethyl fluorescein diacetate (CMFDA) in platelets may related to platelet functions. In the present study, we measured the change of CEIFI in platelets during storage, and examined the correlations of CEIFI with the in vitro functionality of stored platelets, including the ADP-induced aggregation activity, hypotonic shock response, expression of CD62P as well as platelet apoptosis. The CEIFI of fresh platelets, when tested at 10 μM CMFDA, the mean fluorescence intensity index (MFI) was 305.9 ± 49.9 (N = 80). After 1-day storage, it was 203.8 ± 34.4, the CEIFI of the stored platelets started to decline significantly, and reduced to 112.7 ±27.7 after 7-day storage. The change in CEIFI is highly correlated to all four functional parameters measured, with the correlation coefficients being 0.9813, 0.9848, -0.9945 and -0.9847 for the ADP-induced aggregation activity, hypotonic shock response (HSR), expression of CD62P and platelet apoptosis respectively. The above results show that the CEIFI measurement of platelets represents well the viability and functional state of in vitro stored platelets. This may be used as a convenient new method for quality evaluation for stored platelets if this result can be further validated by the following clinical trials.
