Apoptosis in serum of patients with solid tumours

Apoptosis, which occurs in highly proliferating tumours spontaneously or du ring anticancer herapy, may lead to an elevated concentration of circulatin g nucleosomes in! blood. In order to quantify the concentration of nucleoso mes, lye used the Cell Death Detection(plus) ELISA (CDDE) (Boehringer Mannh eim, Germany) based on antibodies against histone and DNA, adapted it to th e demands of liquid materials and standardized test performance and handlin g of serum. Furthermore, we investigated serum samples of 185 patients with solid tumours (additionally 24, treated with radio- or chemotherapy), 30 w ith acute inflammations and 50 healthy persons. Many patients with tumours (78%) and inflammations (77%) showed higher concentrations of serum-nucleos omes (>100 AU), whereas 96% of all healthy persons had low values (<100 AU) . Follow up-studies revealed an early peak after initiation of therapy and correlated to the clinical outcome. The concentration of nucleosomes is a s ensitive marker of cell death and could be used for monitoring the efficacy of antitumour therapy.