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TE Gan, PE Dadonna and BS Mitchell
Adenosine deaminase (ADA) is an enzyme in the purine catabolic pathway that
has been used as an enzymatic marker of T cell lymphoblastic malignancies
due to its high specific activity in thymocytes and immature T cells. We
have investigated whether the level of ADA activity in lymphoid leukemic
cells correlates with the amount of ADA- specific RNA and/or immunoreactive
protein in these cells as an initial step toward characterizing the nature
of the genetic regulation of ADA expression during differentiation. We have
found a good correlation between the steady state levels of ADA-specific
RNA and ADA- immunoreactive protein in T lymphoblastic leukemic cell lines,
mature T cell lines, a B lymphoblast cell line, and leukemic cells directly
isolated from four patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and three
patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Southern blot analysis of DNA
from these cells shows no evidence for differences in ADA gene copy number
or gene rearrangement to account for the variability in ADA expression. We
conclude that levels of ADA in lymphoid leukemic cells are directly related
to the amount of ADA-specific mRNA present. These findings imply that ADA
expression in leukemic cells reflects either the transcriptional activity
of the ADA gene or the stability of ADA mRNA in these cells.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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| Copyright © 1987 by American Society of Hematology Online ISSN: 1528-0020 | |||||||||