Clinical significance of serum guanase activities determined by ammonia method using 8-azaguanine as substrate

• Published in: Kanzo Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 10 - 17
• Main Authors: FUJII, Setsuro, ITO, Susumu, TAKAOKA, Takeshi, KISHI, Seiichiro, OKUDA, Hiromichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Japan Society of Hepatology 1975
• Subjects: 8-azaguanine; guanase
• ISSN: 0451-4203; 1881-3593; 1881-3593
• DOI: 10.2957/kanzo.16.10

Serum guanase activities were determined in normal subjects and in various disease, and the guanase activities of the various tissues and the cell fractions of the liver of human were also determined the new method, which measure the ammonia liberated from 8-azaguanine by the action of guanase with direct colorimetric method. Liver, kidney and brain had high contents of guanase. Heart, skeletal muscles and pancreas almost did not show guanase activity, while they showed comparatively higher activities of GOT and GPT. Such differences of the distribution of guanase and GOT were not only observed in the various tissues but also were observed in the cell fraction of the liver. The activities of the serum guanase elevated markedly in liver diseases, but they did not elevate in myocardial infarction, polymyositis and dermatomyositis, in which the activities of the serum GOT and GPT elevated slightly. These data indicated that the serum guanase activities reflected the hepatic injury more specifically than the GOT and GPT activities. It was concidered from these results that the determinations of the serum guanase activities by the ammonia method might be useful for the clinical practice.