Studies on Cell Lines Developed from the Tissues of Patients with Galactosemia

Cell lines were developed from biopsies on galactosemic and non-galactosemic patients. It was shown that one can discriminate between lines from the two types of donors by their relative growth in glucose and galactose and by their ability to oxidize galactose-1-C(14). The latter method was successful in distinguishing a heterozygous cell line from the normal ones. Sensitivity of galactosemic cells to galactose was suggested by some of the experiments. The kinetics of growth were in some ways reminiscent of a similar phenomenon in the transferase mutants of E. coli, though in the human cells the effect was much less marked.