Differences in Lactate Dehydrogenase Isoenzyme Patterns in Various Parts of the Human Stomach and in Gastritis, Peptic Ulcer, and Gastric Carcinoma

Abstract

Summary The LDH isoenzyme patterns in extracts from normal fundic mucosa, fundic mucosa with moderate gastritis, fundic mucosa with extensive gastritis, marginal mucosa of the pyloric peptic ulcer, gastric carcinoma, and pyloric mucosa were determined. The unchanged fundic mucosa displayed a pattern with LDH 1, LDH 2, and LDH 3 predominance. Pyloric gastric mucosa showed a pattern with LDH 3, LDH 4, and LDH 5 predominance. When unchanged fundic mucosa, mucosa with moderate atrophic gastritis, and mucosa with extensive atrophic gastritis were compared, an increasing percentage of LDH 5 and LDH 4 and a decreasing percentage of LDH 1 and LDH 2 were found; the degree of these changes was closely connected with the decreasing amount of chief and parietal cells and the increasing occurrence of intestinal metaplasia. Similar but much more marked changes of LDH isoenzyme pattern were found in gastric carcinoma tissue, irrespective of its location in the stomach. In diseased pyloric mucosa in the immediate vicinity of a peptic ulcer the LDH isoenzyme pattern tended to have a higher percentage of LDH 5 and a lower percentage of LDH 2. The surface epithelium of the fundic mucosa contained a relatively small percentage of LDH 1 compared with its content in the whole fundic mucosa. In the pyloric area the differences in LDH isoenzyme patterns between surface layer and the whole mucosa were substantially less pronounced. With few exceptions the LDH isoenzyme patterns obtained in these experiments did not conform to the values calculated for the identical H : M ratio. Variations of LDH isoenzyme patterns observed in pathological material can be explained by changes in cellular populations which are individually characterized by specific ratios of monomer H : M synthesis.