Abnormalities of esterase and glycogen in developing macrophages in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: a quantitative...

Integrating microdensitometry has been used to quantitate changes in 4 cytoplasmic enzymes (NADH dehydrogenase, succinate dehydrogenase, acid phosphatase and alpha-naphthyl butyrate esterase), DNA, RNA and glycogen in developing macrophages from 17 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and 19 normal subjects. Cytochemical measurements were made at intervals over 6 days of suspension culture; over 16 000 individual cells were examined in total and the results subjected to analysis of variance. While the levels of enzymes and RNA of both groups showed increases over the period of culture, the levels of alpha-naphthyl butyrate esterase in the patients' cells were consistently lower than the corresponding values for the normal cells and glycogen levels were higher, these differences satisfying the pre-determined requirements for statistical significance. It is concluded that (a) maturational changes take place in cytochemical constituents of developing macrophages of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (b) there are disturbances affecting the amounts of the specific enzyme alpha-naphthyl butyrate esterase and glycogen (c) these abnormalities may be part of a compromise of host defense mechanisms by the disease, although a pre-existing defect in esterase increasing the susceptibility to malignancy is another possibility, and (d) the methods used may be of value in future investigations of the cause of the disturbances and their correction.