Cytochemical Studies on Alkaline Phosphatase in Uterine Normal and Cancer Cells

Abstract

In a previous enzyme histochemical study, we showed that some of the uterine reserve cells carried heat stable alkaline phosphatase (ALP), but most of the cervical epidermoid cancers, heat sensitive ALP.From these result, we suspect that ALP isoenzyme pattern may change after malignant transformation (“enzyme deviation”). ALP reaction products in ALP positive cases, however, were not detected in all parts of the lesions but usually only in some parts.In this report, enzyme cytochemical two inhibition tests (heat stability and L-phenylalanine inhibition tests) were also applied to 55 cytological specimens from benign and malignant uterine tissues in order to find how often cell clusters of various of kinds of lesions have ALP activity and which type of ALP isoenzyme they have.The findings in this study may be summarized as follows:1. As in histochemical specimens, ALP activity was also found in cytological specimens of reserve cell, reserve cell hyperplasia after cryosurgery, cervical gland, cervical epidermoid cancer, endometrium in the proliferative phase and endometrial adenocarcinoma.2. In the heat stability test (65°C, 30min.) for cytological specimens, ALP of reserve cell, reserve cell hyperplasia after cryosurgery and cervical gland were heat stable. ALPs of endometrium and epidermoid cancer, however, were heat sensitive. Of 18 cases of endometrial cancer, the ALPs from six were heat stable, and the others heat sensitive.3. In the L-phenylalanine inhibition test, ALPs from all lesions were sensitive to a lesser or greater extent.From these cytochemical studies of ALP, it may be postulated that “enzyme deviation” exists in the course of carcinogenesis of both uterine cervical epidermoid cancer and endometrial adenocarcinoma.