Concentration, structure and iron saturation of ferritins from normal human lung and lung tumors with graded...

Samples of graded, human lung cancer and of normal lung were assayed for total iron, ferritin, and ferritin iron saturation. Both kinds of tissues contained highly variable amounts of total and ferritin iron and had a range of ferritin iron:protein ratios. No quantitative correlations were found between cancer histopathology and these parameters, in contrast to previous findings for transplantable rat hepatomas. Examination of pooled ferritins isolated from normal lung and lung tumors by quantitative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing before and after acid-urea dissociation, and SDS electrophoresis, revealed no structural differences. It is concluded that at least for the human lung, malignancy of the kind examined causes no change in ferritin gene expression, and that ferritin assays would not be useful in the grading or detection of human lung cancer.