ACTIVITIES OF FREE-RADICAL AND DNA TURN-OVER ENZYMES IN CANCEROUS ANDNON-CANCEROUS HUMAN BRAIN-TISSUES

Activities of adenosine deaminase (ADA), 5' nucleotidase (5'NT), xanth ine oxidase (XO), guanase (GUA), total superoxide dismutase (SOD), glu tathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and catalase (CAT) enzymes were measured in cancerous brain tissues from 48 patients. The results were compared with those of the control brain tissues from 17 subjects. Important d ifferences were found between enzyme activities of control brain tissu es and those of tumoral tissues. There were important intracorrelation s between some of the enzyme activities in both neoplastic and control brain tissues. The correlations exhibited significant differences bet ween control group and patient groups, indicating disordered enzymatic relations in the cancerous brain tissues. The results suggest that en zymatic make-up relating to free radical and purine metabolism shows g reat differences between cancerous and non-cancerous brain tissues. Si milar diversity is also present between various types of cancerous bra in tissues. This implies that enzymatic make-up of the tissues also de pends on the cancer type. We thus suggest that the results obtained fr om this kind of experimental studies should be evaluated individually for the tissue analyzed taking the cancer type into consideration with out making general evaluations.