Charakterystyka elektroforetyczna aktywności metaloproteinazowej surowicy pacjentów z przewlekłą białaczką limfocytową – badania wstępne

Metalloproteinases play an important role in the development and metastasis of many cancers. Their activity is also an important component of tumorgenesis associated processes such as angiogenesis, decreased apoptosis, or unlimited proliferation of pathological cells. In this study we tried to estimate a differences of metalloproteinase activity digesting the gelatin in the sera of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and healthy people, by the zymographic technique. To confirm that the gelatinolytic activity originated from the metalloproteinases their specific inhibitors: phenanthroline and ethylene– diaminetetraacetic acid were used. In patient’s sera a zymographic analysis revealed the presence of additional activity. The first of them are located in a region corresponding to a molecular weight of approximately 240 kDa, probably corresponds to the dimer of proMMP–9. Another two active fractions present in the sera of patients suffering from leukemia corresponded to a molecular weight of about 110 and 130 kDa probably represents a complex of proMMP–9 with lipocain. In a control sera, only one activity could be observed exhibiting a molecular weight of about 110 kDa, which is stronger than corresponding fraction in patient’s sera. The biggest difference between the two investigated sera was gelatynolytic activity located in the region of a molecular weight of about 94 kDa, which probably corresponded to proMMP–9. In some leukemic sera this activity was several times higher compared to the control samples, in which there was a constant and relatively low level of it. Despite significant activity of proMMP–9 in sera of patients with CLL no biologically active equivalent band of molecular weight 84 kDa were detected. The fractions which corresponded to different forms of MMP–2 (72, 64 kDa) were present in the sera of tumor and control, although proMMP–2 was more strongly expressed in the control samples.