During a study of renal cadmium content in hypertension, it was coincidentally observed that renal cadmium was elevated in persons with neoplasia. Therefore, a detailed study was made of cadmium concentration in renal and hepatic tissue and blood of persons with bronchogenic carcinoma. Cadmium was significantly increased in all 3 tissues in bronchogenic cancer. Because of the close relationship between zinc and cadmium in nature, zinc concentrations were also measured. Zinc levels were not significantly different in liver, tended to be high in kidney, and were significantly lower in blood. Similar changes in cadmium concentration were not seen in a group of other neoplastic diseases. The significance of these observations is not clear.
Previous investigation has suggested that one or more substances toxic to tissues are present in the serum of individuals suffering from uremia( 1-5). Recently, Bittar (personal communication) has shown that an ultrafiltrate of serum from uremic patients will inhibit the sodium, potassium adenosinetriphosphatase ( ATPase) of crab muscle. Renner and Heintz(5) reported aberrations of metabolism in kidney cortex in the presence of factors from serum of uremic individuals, and the respiration of isolated mitochondria was thought to be uncoupled in the presence of certain protein free fractiolns isolated from such sera. This report presents data indicating that an ultrafiltrate of sera from uremic persons does indeed produce a partial uncoupling, and further that this uncoupling appears to be associated only with adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) production associated with electron transport between reduced nicotinamideadenine dinucleotide (NADH) and cytochrome b (Site I ) .Materials and methods. All studies were carried out on rat liver mitochondria isolated by the Schneider and Hogeboom technique from a 10% (w/v) 0.25 M sucrose homogenate of rat liver(6). The twice washed mitochondria were suspended at a concentration of 50 mg protein/ml in 0.25 M sucrose before use. The respiration of the isolated mitochondria was studied using a Clark oxygen electrode connected to appropriate amplifiers and recorders ( 7 ) .Normal and uremic serum ultrafilmtrates were obtained by centrifugation through a cellophane membrane a t 4OC or by use of a Schleicher and Schuell vacuum ultrafiltration apparatus which utilizes a collodion membrane.All patients whose sera were used had symptoms of renal failure and had blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels of 100-300 mg % (average of 177 mg ) and serum creatinine levels of 5.4-30 mg % (average of 15 mg %). Of the 7 patients with chronic renal failure, 3 patients had diagnoses of nephrosclerosis, 3 patients had chronic pyelonephritis, and one had glomerulonephritis. Two patients had acute renal failure secondary to pneumonia and surgery. Several patients were receiving medication including at Karolinska Institutets Universitetsbibliotek on July 24, 2015 ebm.sagepub.com Downloaded from
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