Abstract
We report here the variation of hepatic glutathione S-transferase (GST) isozymes in normal livers and livers of patient with malignant tumor. The GST isozyme pattern was determined by chromatofocusing of 40 liver samples. Immunohistochemistry was performed using peroxidaseantiperoxidase technique for 20 liver samples with anti-cationic GST-C2 which crossreacted with all species of cationic GST.
Following results were obtained. (1) In 11 normal livers, the occurrence of cationic C1, C2 and neutral N1 was high, whereas the presence of cationic A1 was not recognized. On the other hand, in 8 apparently normal livers with metastatic lesion from GI tract carcinoma, the occurrence of C2 and N1 was low, and the occurrence of A1 was highly recognized. (2) Although the heaptic GST isozyme A1 and GST of the placenta were eluted at anionic pI from the chromatofocusing, the pI and molecular weight of both were different each other. (3) Immunohistochemistry of the cationic GST revealed the negative GST staining in tumor cells of 3 hepatocellular carcinomas and 6 of 7 metastatic carcinomas, while the positiveness of GST in hepatocytes of such cases was various from low-grade to high-grade compared with that in hepatocytes of 3 normal livers, suggesting the interindividual difference in synthesis of the enzyme.
