Correlative histochemistry of some enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism in preneoplastic and neoplastic lesions in the rat liver.

The livers from a total of 51 Sprague-Dawley rats treated with different doses of N-nitrosomorpholine (80-120 mg/l in the drinking water) for up to 14 weeks together with the livers of 28 control animals were histochemically investigated at the cessation of carcinogenic insult and at varying periods thereafter for their glycogen content, basophilia and activities of various enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism: glycogen synthetase, glycogen phosphorylase, glucose-6-phosphatase, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. The enzymatic patterns of normal tissue, preneoplastic and neoplastic lesions were characterized and compared with reference to the morphologically defined stages of tumor development in the liver. The early appearing glycogen storing areas, localized in the peripheral and intermediate lobular regions, did not show significant changes in the histochemically demonstrable activities of the enzymes tested. After cessation of the carcinogen treatment the more pronounced glycogen storage foci which developed within the aforementioned regions of the liver acinus usually showed a reduction in the activities of phosphorylase and glucose-6-phosphatase while the activity of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, a key enzyme for the pentose phosphate pathway, was increased. The mixed cell foci, neoplastic nodules and tumors which emerged at later stages were characterized by a progressive shift away from glycogen metabolism towards glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway, as indicated by an increase in glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activities. These changes in enzyme pattern are supportive of a developmental sequence leading from glycogen storage foci through mixed cell foci and neoplastic nodules to hepatocellular carcinomas.