Argyrophilic proteins of the nucleolar organizer region in acute leukemias and its relation to the S-phase fraction of leukemic cells.
Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) are loops of DNA which transcribes to ribosomal RNA. The NOR-related protein becomes visible in nucleus by a silver-staining technique under a light microscope, and it has been named argyrophilic protein of NOR (Ag-NOR). In various malignancies, the correlation between the proliferation potential of tumor cells or histological grade and the number of Ag-NORs has been reported. In this study, we investigated the Ag-NOR of acute leukemic cells and its relation to the in vivo proportion of bone marrow leukemic cells in DNA synthetic phase. The number of Ag-NORs in bone marrow leukemic cells was more than that in peripheral blood (means values 2.78 and 2.48, respectively, p less than 0.01). This result shows that the number of Ag-NORs reflects the vigorous proliferative potential of bone marrow leukemic cells. However, no significant correlation was obtained between the number of Ag-NORs and the bromodeoxyuridine-labeling indices (r = 0.2064). These results suggest that Ag-NOR might be one of the markers for cellular proliferation in leukemia, while DNA synthesis of leukemic cells do not seem to be directly related to Ag-NOR. In order to clarify the role of Ag-NOR in leukemia, further studies are needed.
Nakamura
S
S
Third Department of Medicine, Kanazawa University School of Medicine, Japan.
Takeda
Y
Y
Okabe
Y
Y
Yoshida
T
T
Ohtake
S
S
Kobayashi
K
K
Kanno
M
M
Matsuda
T
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology; D002455:Cell Division; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007938:Leukemia / Q000473:pathology*; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000473:pathology; D016196:S Phase; D012834:Silver; D013194:Staining and Labeling
D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D012834:Silver