Glycolytic and respiratory properties of malignant and nonmalignant lymphoblasts cultured in vitro.

Two strains of lymphoblasts, the malignant MB VIA and the nonmalignant MB HI ' , both derived by continuous subculture from an explant of a mouse lymphosarcoma, were cultured in large amounts. The respiration, anaerobic and aerobic glycolysis of the cells were measured, and the effects of ~, 4-dinitrophenol and the tumor-inhibitory compound 4(4'-dimethylaminostyryl)quinoline on the latter processes were studied. The respiration of the malignant lymphoblasts was equal to or higher than that of the nonmalignant ones according to the medium in which the latter cells had been cultivated. By a similar dependency the anaerobic glycolysis of the malignant lymphoblasts was only slightly or moderately higher than the corresponding process of the nonmalignant lymphoblasts. Both the relative and the absolute Pasteur effects were more pronounced in the malignant than in the nonmalignant cells, whereas the inhibition of glycolysis by respiration could be completely eliminated by 2,4-dinitrophenol or the styrylquinoline in the two types of cells. The results stood thus in marked contradiction to the basis of Warburg's theory on the origin of cancer cells, which holds that a respiratory impairment followed by a gain in glycolysis leads to cancer cells. I t is concluded that Warburg's theory is not correct.