[Biochemical characteristics determining the rates of tumour growth in the organism]

Experimental data suggest that contrary to the findings obtained for normal and regenerating liver of mouse, the greater part of hexokinase (HK) in transplantable hepatomas is firmly bound to mitochondrial membranes. It is shown that the ratio of the bound HK activity (HKbound) to that of total HK activity (HKtotal) diminishes with a hepatoma growth. Malignization of hepatocytes also leads to a sharp decrease in the cytochrome oxidase (CO) octivity. Though the data obtained are well-correlated with the Warburg hypothesis, there is no direct correlation between the malignancy of hepatomas evaluated by their growth rates, and the biochemical parameters of the tumours studied. On the basis of fundamental principles of Warburg's, it is proposed to evaluate energy metabolism of hepatomas by the activity and subcellular distribution patterns of HK as well as be the activity of CO, according to the expression: [(HKtotal)2//HKbound-CO+HKbound-CO]. It is demonstrated that there exists a certain linear dependence between the integral characteristics of hepatoma energetics and their growth rates.