Biochemical properties of platelet microparticle membranes formed during exocytosis resemble organelles more than plasma membrane.

Studies of [3H]glycerol turnover in phosphatidylcholine (PC) in platelets revealed two metabolic pools, a 'low turnover PC' in collagen-induced microparticles with specific radioactivity only 10% of that found in the 'high turnover PC' of bulk platelet PC. Isolated organelle fractions of [3H]glycerol-labelled platelets contained [3H]PC with specific radioactivities about 20% of that in membrane fractions. These results together with studies on distribution of concanavalin A-FITC and GPlb, a plasma membrane receptor, indicate that microparticles formed during exocytosis are not simple vesiculations of plasma membrane, but they seem rather to originate from a relatively metabolically static membrane pool not accessible to extracellular reagents.