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The Biochemical Identification of Blood and Bone Marrow Cells of Patients with Acute Leukemia

Biochemical Laboratory of the Leningrad Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, Leningrad, U.S.S.R.

Undifferentiated blast white blood cells from 121 cases of acute leukemia were investigated in relation to respiration, glycolysis, content and transformation of glycogen, activities of glycogen-synthesizing enzymes, pyrimidine nucleoside phosphorylases, glucose-6-phosphate and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenases, and glutathione reductase. The results are compared with the analogous indexes of leukocytes of healthy persons and of patients with chronic forms of leukemia and polycythemia.

All types of white blood cells have been divided into two broad metabolic groups: (a) those exhibiting aerobic glycolysis under normal conditions of oxygen supply, and (b) those not undergoing aerobic glycolysis. In the first group we found granulocytes of healthy persons, leukocytes of patients with polycythemia and chronic myeloid leukemia, and undifferentiated white blood cells in the majority (62%) of patients with acute leukemia, evidently of myeloid origin. In the second group we found lymphocytes of healthy persons, lymphocytes of patients with chronic lymphoid leukemia, and undifferentiated white blood cells of patients with acute leukemia, evidently of lymphoid nature (38%). It has been demonstrated that the metabolic type of leukocytes depends primarily on the tissue origin of the cells but not on the degree of maturity or leukemic transformation. Both groups of blasts of patients with acute leukemia, just as leukocytes of patients with chronic myeloid or lymphoid leukemia, clearly differ from one another in turnover rate of glycogen, activities of phosphoglucomutase, uridine diphosphate glucose pyrophosphorylase, uridine diphosphate glucose glycogen glucosyl transferase, and also in activities of uridine, deoxyuridine, cytidine, deoxycytidine, and thymidine phosphorylases, and glucose-6-phosphate and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenases. Theoretical and practical aspects of these observations are considered.

Received 1/24/68. Accepted 8/26/68.