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Studies on the Metabolism of Human Tumors

I. Pentosenucleic Acid Synthesis in Tumor-bearing Hamsters^{* ,}

( Laboratories of the Sloan-Kettering Division of Cornell University Medical College, New York, N.Y.)

Studies of the utilization of adenine, 2,6-diaminopurine, guanine, hypoxanthine, and glycine as precursors of the PNA of hamsters, and of hamsters bearing heterologous tumor implants, have emphasized the complexity of the metabolic pathways which lead to nucleic acid purines. In the tumors themselves preformed purines are incorporated to a much smaller extent than they are in intestines, liver, kidney, or spleen. They utilize guanine to an extremely small extent, and glycine most extensively. The uptake of glycine is almost equal to that of the intestines, the host tissue which uses it most extensively. Like each of the other tissues, the tumors exhibit a characteristic pattern of utilization of these precursors. With the presence of tumors there is a lowered use of glycine by all tissues but the intestines, and there is an increased incorporation of hypoxanthine into PNA adenine by the host tissues. These findings have been discussed in view of their possible significance in the chemotherapy of cancer.

^* This investigation was supported by funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service (Grant #C-471), and from the Atomic Energy Commission, (Contract #AT(30-1)-910).

A preliminary report of this work has been presented (5).

Received 6/17/55.