VOL. 12 (1953) BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA 163 



ENZYMIC STUDIES ON ASCITIC TUMORS AND THEIR HOST'S 



BLOOD PLASMAS 



by 



ARTHUR L. SCHADE 



Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Microbiological Institute 

 National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Hea 

 Education, and Welfare, Bethesda, Md. (U.S.A.) 



INTRODUCTION 



Otto Warburg, adding to his monumental contributions to the metabohsm of 

 tumors^"^, has continued to direct attention to the high anaerobic metabolic activity 

 of cancer tissues as "indeed the biochemical key to the cancer problem"*. In recent inves- 

 tigations of the metabolism of ascites tumor cells^, Warburg found that Ehrlich carci- 

 noma ascitic cells possess very high anaerobic ((^ N2/CO2) and aerobic [QO.JCO^) glycolytic 

 capacities, of the order of 45 to 55 and 35 to 45 respectively, when analyzed in their own 

 ascitic fluid fresh from the host peritoneal cavity. Since it was shown that both the 

 sugar and oxygen supplies to the tumor cells in vivo are relatively small in contrast to 

 their metabolic capacities, Warburg emphasizes the efficiency of these cells not only 

 to remain alive in the host body but to flourish on the apparently restricted available 

 energy. Further, the interesting observation was made that the aldolase concentration 

 of the ascitic fluid increased several fold when Ehrlich carcinoma ascitic cell suspensions 

 were incubated under anaerobic conditions in vitro. The occurrence of relatively high 

 amounts of aldolase in the fresh ascitic fluid as found by Warburg^ and others^ reflects, 

 he believes, the essentially anaerobic conditions under which the tumor cells exist in the 

 peritoneal cavity of the host. 



For the past two years we have investigated the metabolism of the dba mouse 

 thymoma'. The anaerobic glycolytic Q values for this tumor, in ascitic fluid as well as in 

 Krebs-Ringer carbonate media, ranged from 33 to the unusually high value of 83 ; — in 

 general, the older the tumor the higher the Q value. The aerobic glycolytic Q values ran- 

 ged from 8 to 25 and were likewise dependent on tumor age. Stimulated by Warburg's 

 work on the aldolase concentration of both fresh and anaerobically incubated Ehrlich 

 carcinoma ascitic fluids, we examined thymoma ascitic cell suspensions under similar 

 conditions and extended the observations to include, in addition to aldolase, isomerase 

 and a-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase concentrations in the ascitic fluids from tumors 

 of different ages and in the blood plasmas of the hosts. Comparative investigations 

 were made on the Ehrlich ascites carcinoma in strain C albino mice. Some studies restricted 

 to the aldolase pattern of the Krebs-2 ascites carcinoma in the same host strain were 

 also made. The results of these experiments are presented in this paper. 



References p. 171. 



