RNase H of human leukemic cells: a new biological parameter in the study of human leukemias (review).

This article reviews the authors' investigation of the enzyme RNase H (EC 3.1.4.34.) in human leukemic cells and presents the accumulated available data, based on which this enzyme is proposed to serve as a new biological parameter in the study of progression of human leukemias. The introduction gives a brief account of the occurrence, characterization and possible biological role of RNase H in cells and in retroviruses. The results reviewed briefly concern: (1) the development of a new convenient, economic and reliable assay for normal and leukemic blood mononuclear cell RNase H, which is capable of resolving subtle activity differences between samples; (2) the differentiation of RNase H levels between normal and leukemic cells; (3) the correlation of RNase H levels from different leukemia types with the severity of the disease; (4) the correlation of RNase H levels in leukemic cells with clonogenic stages in the clonal differentiation pathway; (5) the predictive potential of a RNase H activity-based parameter (phi) in assessing progression in acute myelocytic leukemia and (6) the possibility of differentiation of the RNase H levels between normal and leukemic cells via regulation of the enzyme activity at the level of antagonistic phosphorylations mediated by cAMP and calmodulin.