Morphologic Heterogeneity of Cell Populations Isolated by Density Gradient Centrifugation from Serous Fluids of Ovarian Tumors

The cells of tumor fluid from patients with malignant and benign serous ovarian neoplasms were fractionated using Ficoll-Uropoline density gradient centrifugation. Density distribution and morphologic characteristics of cell fractions were analyzed. It was found that serous ovarian adenocarcinomas contained three to four types of morphologically malignant cells focused in low density layers. Borderline ovarian neoplasms showed the presence of one subpopulation of cells with some features of malignancy and cells with some atypical but non-malignant features. The fluids of serous cysts contained mainly normal epithelial cells representing different stages of morphological maturity and were focused in denser layers. The results allowed us to catalogue ovarian tumor cell subpopulations present in each density fraction of individual patients and confirmed that ovarian tumors could be diagnosed by morphologic identification of cells from tumor fluids.

Improved DEAE-Sephadex column chromatography in measuring amylase in serous ovarian neoplasms, and results for 13 cases.

We describe a column-chromatographic method for measuring amylase activity in cyst fluids of serous ovarian tumors. Using this technique, we confirm and extend the previous report of an "acidic" amylase in serous ovarian tumor cyst fluids. This form of the enzyme was eluted from DEAE-Sephadex mini-columns with a high-salt buffer. It accounted for 45 to 100% of the amylase in 13 cyst fluids. This "high-salt" amylase was also present in the tumor tissues. The acidic nature of the amylase does not appear to be due to sialic acid residues, because the chromatographic behavior of the amylase is unaffected by treatment with neuraminidase. We conclude that the "acidic" amylase reported previously in two serous ovarian tumors is a constant feature of these tumors and that it is distinct from the sialylated tumor amylase described by others.