5'nucleotidase, adenosine deaminase and purine nucleoside phosphorylase activities in acute leukaemia

Three enzymes concerned in purine degradation, 5'nucleotidase (5'NT), adenosine deaminase (ADA) and purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) have been measured biochemically in the bone marrow or peripheral blood blasts from 75 patients with acute leukaemia, from 18 patients with blast crisis of chronic granulocytic leukaemia and in the bone marrow and peripheral blood lymphocytes from 14 normal donors. Characteristic patterns among the different sub-types of acute leukaemia have been detected, with high ADA, low 5'NT and PNP in Thy-ALL, high 5'NT and ADA in c-ALL, high PNP and low ADA in AML. The cells in CGL blast transformation resembled the enzymatic pattern of either AML or c-ALL respectively. However, no significant correlation was found between any pair of enzymes in any group of leukaemia, normal bone marrow or peripheral blood lymphocytes studied here.