MLL gene rearrangements were detected with a single probe and a single restriction-enzyme digest in all DNA samples from patients with the common 11q23 translocations as well as in 16 patients or cell lines with other 11q23 anomalies. The ability to detect an MLL gene rearrangement rapidly and reliably, especially in patients with limited material for cytogenetic analysis, should make it possible to identify patients who have a poor prognosis and therefore require aggressive chemotherapy or marrow transplantation.

A primary human pancreatic tumor line (BxPC-3) has been established from a biopsy specimen of a histologically confirmed adenocarcinoma of the body of the pancreas. Tumorigenicity was proven by xenograft in athymic nude mice. Upon re-establishment of tumor xenografts in tissue culture, the epithelial tumor cells retained their original morphology. Histopathologically, the tumors grown in nude mice exhibited the original characteristics of the primary adenocarcinoma in the patient, producing traceable mucin and displaying moderately well to poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas with occasional lymphocytic infiltrations at the tumor peripheries. Furthermore, the tumor xenografts differentially expressed carcinoembryonic antigen, human pancreas cancer-associated antigen, and human pancreas-specific antigen. Karyotyping and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase isoenzyme characterization revealed that this tumor line was of human origin and devoid of HeLa cell contamination. The BxPC-3 tumor line has been maintained for more than four years in our laboratory and represents a valuable model for primary human pancreatic cancer.

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The metabolism of testosterone administered to human subjects was studied soon after the isolation and synthesis of the testicular steroid hormone. In 1939, Dorfman, Cook, and Hamilton (1) and Callow (2) almost simultaneously reported the isolation of androsterone and etiocholanolone in the urine of men receiving testosterone propionate. During the 1940's, Lieberman, Dobriner and their co-workers (3-5) published extensive studies on steroids in human urine related to the metabolism of testosterone. West and his colleagues (6, 7) not only studied the urinary metabolites following the intravenous administration of testosterone (in human serum albumin), but in addition reported studies on the clearance from blood of testosterone and its metabolites (17-ketosteroids). All of the investigations cited were performed following the administration of very large, and hence unphysiological, doses of testosterone.It was not until methods were developed for the synthesis of labelled testosterone that it became possible to study the metabolism of the hormone administered in physiological doses. Gallagher, Fukushima, Dobriner and their associates were the first to report observations on the metabolism of C14 and deuterium labelled testosterone (8-11). The amounts of testosterone administered by these investigators approximated, in most cases, the quantity of hormone calculated to be excreted by the testes. Fukushima, Dobriner, Gallagher, and Bradlow (10,11) reported that the preponderant part of the administered labelled testosterone ap peared in the urine with small amounts in the feces. The authors did not report on the radioactivity in blood.The biliary excretion of steroids in human subjects has not been studied extensively. Such studies are of importance in the elucidation of testosterone metabolism in man, since it has been

The APS Journal Legacy Content is the corpus of 100 years of historical scientific research from the American Physiological Society research journals. This package goes back to the first issue of each of the APS journals including the American Journal of Physiology, first published in 1898. The full text scanned images of the printed pages are easily searchable. Downloads quickly in PDF format.