ACTIVITIES OF PHOSPHATE-ACTIVATED GLUTAMINASE IN TUMOUR TISSUES

A comparative study of phosphate-activated glutaminase activity has been conducted in some normal and tumour tissues. It was found that:(1) There was a wide range of difference in the glutaminase activity among the tumours so far investigated, which was however not as wide as that observed in the normal tissues. The highest level of glutaminase activity was found in the transplanted thymolymphosarcoma, which was about seven times higher than that in the normal thymus.(2) During the growth of transplanted solid tumours, the glutaminase activity was found to vary with the weight of tumour tissue. An approximate parallelism between the increase in glutaminase activity and the weight of tumour has been observed in some, but not all of the tumours so far studied.(3) The enzyme activity in the regenerating rat liver was lower than that in the normal liver.(4) The possible significance of glutaminase to the growth of some tumours has been discussed.