Immunohistochemical localization of adenosine deaminase in human lymphoid tissues and lymphomas.

Abstract

During the last decade, adenosine deaminase (ADA) has attracted a great deal of attention because of its involvement in the development of the immune system. In humans, deficiency of ADA is usually associated with a hereditary form of severe combined immunodeficiency (Giblett et al., 1972). The largest amounts of enzyme have been found in lymphoid tissues, particularly in the thymus gland (Adams et al., 1976) and leukemic lymphoblasts of thymic phenotype (Smith et al., 1978). Within the thymus, ADA is predominantly located in cortical thymocytes (Chechik et al., 1981), which express higher enzyme activity than do medullary and extrathymic lymphocytes (Barton et al., 1979). These findings led to the suggestion that ADA is associated with the intrathymic differentiation of T cells.KeywordsGerminal CenterAdenosine DeaminasePrimary FollicleSmall Lymphocytic LymphomaAdenosine Deaminase ActivityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.