Beta‐glucuronidase activities in tumors of the nervous system

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Abstract
The use of a quantitative histochemical technique requiring as little as 10 ug of dry weight of tissue sample has proved quite satisfactory for the study of beta-glucuronidase activity in a series including the major varieties of nervous system tumors. Although all malignant tumors yielded values much higher than those obtained from normal cortex or subcortical white matter of frontal lobe, no relationship could be attributed to the presence of malignant tissue per se since a number of clearly benign tumors showed higher values than certain malignant specimens. The most striking correlations have been in regard to distinctions between cell lines of neoplasms and, in the case of astrocytic tumors, to the extent of anaplasia within the group. Among the tumors of ependymal origin, all examples showed moderately high activity regardless of the degree of differentiation. A special example of this group, a choroid plexus papilloma, yielded one of the highest values in the series, a finding which is believed to reflect a special enzymatic property of the choroidal epithelium. Well differentiated tumors of the astrocytic and oligodendrocytic series had quite low values among the tumor group as a whole. Most anaplastic astro-cytomas were not different from well-differentiated forms. The glio-blastoma multiforme group, most of which had some astrocytic characteristics, showed enzyme activities much greater than the well differentiated astrocytomas. Within the glioblastoma group, those with fairly well differentiated cells had lower activities than those which were distinctly more anaplastic. Total beta-glucuronidase activity persists in areas of complete necrosis within malignant glial tumors but does not attain as high a level as in the corresponding viable tissue. Within an abscess wall, some very high levels found in the inner layers could be correlated with the presence of polymorphonuclear leukocytes.