DETERMINATION OF THE RELATIVE AMOUNT OF NUCLEIC-ACIDS AND PROTEINS INLEUKEMIC AND NORMAL LYMPHOCYTES BY MEANS OF FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED MICROSPECTROSCOPY

Previous Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic studies on n eoplastic and normal cells have shown different band profiles and inte nsity associated with absorptions of proteins and nucleic acids, In th e present study, an interpretation of such differences has been attemp ted by comparing the spectra of DNA/RNA/protein mixtures with the spec tra, particularly, obtained for lymphocytes from B-chronic lymphatic l eukemia (B-CLL) patients and normal donors, FT-IR microspectroscopy an alysis showed a good agreement between the intensity and the band prof ile of the spectra of leukemic lymphocytes and those of the binary mix ture made up of 75% human serum albumin and 25% DNA, The addition of s mall amounts of RNA (1-5%) modified the band shape, making it more sim ilar to the spectrum of normal lymphocytes, An attempt was also made t o estimate the relative amounts of DNA and RNA, The results demonstrat ed an increase in the DNA/RNA ratio value in neoplastic lymphocytes wi th respect to that reported in literature for normal ones.