A histochemical study on hydrolytic and oxidative enzymes in human sarcomas.

Histochemical evaluations of human sarcomas such as reticulum cell sarcoma, fibrosarcoma, lymphosarcoma and neurofibrosarcoma, were carried out with five hydrolytic enzymes and eight oxidative enzymes. The activities of acid phosphatase and beta-glucuronidase were slightly positive in the neoplastic cells observed. Beta-esterase activity was also positive but varied according to the kind of sarcomas. Alkaline phosphatase activity was faint or negative in sarcoma cells, though positive in capillary walls. Leucine aminopeptidase activity was negative giving not any appreciable coloration of the cell as far as the method employed is concerned. Among the activities of dehydrogenases, the most intense activity was observed in lactic dehydrogenase. The activities of succinic and beta-hydroxybutyric dehydrogenases were slight. The activities of alphaglycerophosphate, glutamic and betahydroxybutyric dehydrogenases were faint or slight. The activities of NADPlinked dehydrogenases, glucose-6-phosphate and isocitric dehydrogenase were all faint or slight in these sarcoma cells. ∗PMID: 4226976 [PubMed indexed for MEDLINE] Copyright c ©OKAYAMA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL Acta Med. Okayama 20, 159-166 (1966) A HISTOCHEMICAL STUDY ON HYDROLYTIC AND OXIDATIVE ENZYMES IN HUMAN SARCOMAS Hideo NOBUTO, Takao KAWASHIMA, Nobuto SHIMATANI, Kisaburo TAKEUCHI, Akemi MIHARA, Takashi SEITO, and Takuro OGATA Department of Surgery, Okayama University Medical School, Okayama Japan (Director: Prof. S. Tanaka) Received for publication, May 16, 1966 Biochemical investigations occasionaly fall in great errors on the estimation of chemical substance or enzyme activity of neoplastic tissues because of the unavoidable inclusion of non-neoplastic tissues during homogenating process, while histochemical investigations have great advantage to analyse the localization of enzyme activity in the unit of cellular or tissue structure. In this decade, there appeared many histochemical observations on tumor cells and several observations on human sarcomas such as those reported by MONIS et al.,9,l1,12, SELIGMAN et al. ,1,1O, MORl et al. Is and KABAT et a[,l. They observed various tumors histochemically but only a few of human tumors, and only a poor information on the enzyme activities of human sarcomas. Therefore, the authors observed the enzyme activities of human sarcoma cells by histochemical methods for the purpose to disclose some possible difference in enzyme activity between normal and tumor cells. The present paper deals with the enzyme activities of nine cases of human sarcomas. The enzyme activities observed were those of hydrolytic and oxidative ones, such as alkaline phosphatase, acid phosphatase, betaestrase, leucine aminopepidase, j9-glucuronidase, succinic dehydrogenase, lactic dehydrogenase, malic dehydrogenase, a-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, glutamic dehydrogenase, ;9-hydroxybutyric dehydrogenase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and iso-citric dehydrogenase. MATERIALS AND METHODS Nine cases of sarcomas were studied. They were·5 cases of reticulosarcoma, 2 cases of fibrosarcoma, 1 case of lymphosarcoma and 1 case of neurofibrosarcoma. The blocks for the experiment were obtained exclusively from surgical specimens and frozen in the deep freezer at 30°C. Frozen blocks were sliced 20f.L thick in a -20°C cryostat, with a sliding microtome. Parallel sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for morphological orientation.