Lysosomal hyaluronidase activity in normal rat liver and in chemically induced hepatomas.

It has been demonstrated that solid hepatoma lysosomes lack hyaluronidase activity, whereas normal rat liver lyso somes contain a high level of this enzyme. This result was also found with lysosomes from an ascites hepatoma, Walker carcinoma 256, and virally transformed BHK cells. In contrast, 0-yV-acetylglucosaminidase activity was shown to be present in lysosomes from tumor cells, although its level was decreased by about 75%, compared with that of controls. As it is known that hyaluronidase and /3-/V-acetylglucosaminidase activities are increased in the extracellular space of tumors, we suggest that the lack of hyaluronidase and the important decrease of /8-,/V-acetylglucosaminidase in tumor lysosomes are due to a perturbation of the control of enzyme distribution from the Golgi apparatus to the lysosomes and the extracellular space.