Quantitative cytospectrophotometric studies on protein thiols and reactive protein disulphides in samples of normal human uterine cervix and on samples obtained from patients with dysplasia or carcinoma-in-situ.

Quantitative microspectophotometric studies have been made on sections of human cervix after staining for reactive protein thiol-groups (PSHr), and the sum of protein thiols with so-called reactive protein disulphides (together abbreviated as TRPS). Measurements were made on normal epithelium, apparently normal epithelium adjacent to a pathological lesion, dysplastic epithelium, carcinoma-in-situ, and adjoining stroma. The numbers of cases studied were: normal healthy controls (53); patients with dysplasias (34) and patients with carcinoma-in-situ (29). In the normal control sections the ratio of PSHr in epithelium:stroma was approximately 2.7 and this ratio was strongly decreased in dysplasias (1.6) and carcinoma-in-situ (1.5); the 3 populations of values had sufficient overlap to prevent this measurement being an effective discriminator. No significant variations were observed with TRPS-values except with changes in the stroma adjacent to apparently normal epithelium. However, the ratio of PSHr:TRPS was effectively discriminatory when this double-staining ratio was calculated for epithelial values:stromal values. These results are discussed in relation to the importance of thiol-groups in cell division and cancer, and the biological implications of similar changes observed in neighbouring apparently normal epithelium.