Acid and alkaline phosphatase activities in homogenates and subcellular fractions of human brain tumors.

This study is a quantitative analysis of acid and alkaline phosphatase activity in human brain tumor homogenates and subcellular fractions, in parallel with normal brain tissue. Glioblastoma multiforme, meningioma, astrocytoma and normal tissue samples were separated by ultracentrifugation into five subcellular fractions: nuclei (N), mitochondria (M), microsomes (P), ribosomes (R) and supernatant (S). These two phosphatases showed significant increase in astrocytoma and meningioma tissue homogenates, compared with normal brain tissue. Alkaline phosphatase levels were determined to increase significantly in glioblastoma multiforme tissue homogenates as compared with normals, while those of acid phosphatase were observed to decrease. The results of this investigation also indicate that the subcellular distributions of acid and alkaline phosphatase show differences in the different tumor types. This observation is evidence against metabolic uniformity in tumoral tissue.