Abstract
Adenosine deaminase (ADA) and purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) are known to be as enzymes of purine salvage pathway. ADA isoenzyme including ADA1 and ADA2, and PNP activities were measured in sera of 28 patients with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). Nine cases with acute ATL, 6 lymphoma ATL, 10 chronic ATL and 3 smoldering ATL were subjected in this study. Sera of 21 healthy carriers with positive for anti-ATLA antibody and 86 normal individuals were also tested for the enzyme activity.
ADA isoenzyme and PNP activities were found uniformly higher in sera of the patients with ATL than that of the normal controls. In sera from the patients with acute (12.4±4.8, P<0.01)and lymphoma ATL (12.8±5.9, P<0.05), ADA1 activity was significantly elevated as compared with chronic ATL (5.1±2.3). No significant difference in ADA1 activity was noted in both smoldering ATL and healthy carriers as compared with chronic ATL. ADA2 activity was elevated in sera of ATL patients (P<0.05) as compared with healthy carriers. PNP activity was found to be increased in sera of patients with acute ATL (8.3±4.0, P<0.05) as compared with both lymphoma (3.2±2.9) and chronic ATL (5.1±2.3), respectively.
These data indicate that the ADA and PNP activities in sera of ATL patients reflect the condition of this disease. To measure of these purine metabolic enzyme activities may provide an additional parameter for distinguishing subtypes of ATL and may prove to be considerable prognostic and therapeutic monitors in ATL cases.
