Lucille Bitensky

RESPONSE OF HUMAN BREAST-CANCER TISSUE TO STEROID HORMONES IN VITRO

Abstract Biopsy tissue from sixteen patients with carcinoma of the breast was maintained in Trowells T8 culture medium to which oestradiol, œstrogen antagonists (testosterone and drostanolone), or both oestradiol and drostanolone had been added. This in-vitro test differentiated two types of malignant tissue: five specimens survived well in the medium without additives, but seven did not. These seven specimens survived well in the presence of œstradiol, but not when œstrogen antagonists (alone or with oestradiol) were added.

The study of monoamine oxidase activity by histochemical procedures

Abstract Histochemistry gives more information of the nature of the activity of monoamine oxidase than can be obtained readily by conventional biochemical procedures. Thus in sections of human endometrium which have been frozen and sectioned by a special technique, this enzyme has been shown to occur either in discrete particles or diffusely, depending on the stage of the menstrual cycle. The physiological significance of the changed localization of this enzyme might be related to the spasm of the spiral arteries which is said to initiate menstruation.

Cytochemical Analysis of Left Ventricular Biopsies in Open-Heart Surgery: A Pilot Study

Summary 1. In previous studies three histochemical tests have been useful in detecting myocardial dysfunction. 2. These have been applied to left ventricular biopsies from 37 patients who underwent prolonged open-heart surgery. The immediate objective was to investigate whether these tests could be used as a guide to prognosis. 3. There was good correlation between the graded response to the histochemical tests and the clinical assessment of the myocardium. The tests over-warned in 3 cases out of 15, and did not warn of myocardial dysfunction in 2 cases out of 22 which showed clinical dysfunction. 4. One of the most difficult aspects of the pre-operative assessment of left heart lesions is the evaluation of the state of the myocardium. The development of cardiac biopsy methods that can be performed at the time of catheterisation would allow such histochemical analyses of myocardial function to be more widely used.

THE VARIATION OF ENDOMETRIAL ACID PHOSPHATASE ACTIVITY WITH THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE

IT is perhaps surprising that such work as has been done on the acid phosphatase of endometrium appears to lack correlation with modern biochemical findings. The detailed biochemical studies of Goldberg and Jones (1954) were concerned only with the substrate specificity of the endometrial enzyme ; because this work predated that of Duve and his collaborators (1955) they did not differentiate between the free and bound activities of the acid phosphatase. The lengthy study of BoutseIis et al. (1962) cannot evade criticism on these grounds. It would appear that these authors disregarded the modern biochemical work on acid phosphatase and on lipids. Thus they treated the enzyme as if it were entirely in solution inside the cell and unrelated to cellular structure; they fixed it with formalin, which can cause up to 60 per cent loss of its activity (Barka and Anderson, 1963) and they did not attempt to reactivate it, as had been advised by Holt (1 959). Their rather ambiguous communication gives the impression that they embedded the tissue in paraffin wax in spite of the fact that this procedure is liable to destroy this enzyme almost completely (Barka and Anderson, 1963). Both groups of authors have speculated, without obvious rational basis, about the function of acid phosphatase in the endometrium, the biochemists without being able to relate the activity to cellular structure, and the others despite having inhibited most of the enzyme which they were studying. The evidence of Bitensky (1962, 1963a) that acid phosphatase could be studied in unfixed tissue sections, and hence without loss by

Freie Vorträge, Kreislauforgane

The aortas of feti in the last gestational months, and of newborn babies up to one year of age, were investigated and special attention was paid to mucopolysaccharides of the ground substance. The cases were devided into three groups: normal subjects, cases with congenital malformations of the cardiovascular and other systems, and subjects with infectious diseases.—During the last months of fetal life the aortic wall undergoes continuous changes consisting of increase of the ground substance and of progressive separation of the elastic layers with alterations of their regular parallel disposition. — Maturative processes may be disturbed by infectious diseases which are able to induce changes directly or by means of the endocrine system (adrenal glands) in the ground substance such as focal accumulations of chromo-trope substance in the intima and in the media, destruction of elastic systems and increase of collagen fibers. — The first change in fetal aortic walls due to pathological factors is represented by an alteration in the composition of the ground substance, which appears stained deeper by Alcian-blue on account of an increase of the degree of polymerisation of mucopolysaccharides. — Special importance is attributed to this kind of changes in the aortic wall, before or after birth within the first year of age, and to their possible significance in view of later alterations to which the vessel may undergo in adult life.

Lipide, Lipopigmente, Leber

Experimental degeneration was produced in a number of rats. The technique has been described previously by Johnson, McNabb, and Rossiter. It seemed of interest to investigate histochemically the changes in the lipids in a degenerating nerve compared and connected with the changes in two oxidative enzymes: a carbohydrate dehydrogenase (succinic) and a fatty acid (β-hydroxybutyric) dehydrogenase, in normal controls and in Wallerian degeneration. For the identification of the lipid substances 10% buffered formalin fixed frozen sections were taken from the sciatic nerve of rats, and were stained for total lipids with Sudan IV, Sudan Black, and Oil Red 0, for neutral lipids with Nile Blue sulfate and for plasmalogens with the Schiff reagent. For the localization of the dehydrogenases, the tissues were rapidly frozen by dry ice and after cutting transferred directly into the substrate solution containing nitro-blue tetrazolium according to the method described by Nachlas and collaborators. In normal nervous tissue the two different dehydrogenases exhibited similar patterns. The distribution of both enzymes followed the course of the nerve fibers. The intensity of hydroxybutyric dehydrogenase was somewhat weaker. In the degenerated nerve the change occurring in the enzyme system was striking. The fatty acid dehydrogenase still exhibited a faint reaction, showing only a little elevation in activity at the first stage compared with the intact nerve. Succinic dehydrogenase activity increases after 14 days of operation when the first invasion of fat cells appears between the degenerated fibers. Both of these enzymes show activity in adipose tissue. Succinic dehydrogenase exhibited an increasing activity during the process of demyelination. The enzyme was represented as extremely fine and uniform granules arranged along the nerve fibers. The changes occurring in the degenerated myelin lipids will be described and the significance of these findings will be discussed in relation to the enzyme changes in Wallerian degeneration.