Enzyme activities in biopsy specimens from large-bowel mucosa in ulcerative colitis.

Biopsy specimens from all main segments of the large bowel, obtained from 16 patients with ulcerative colitis, were examined histologically and assayed for a series of organelle marker enzymes. Compared with a control group of 20 subjects, significant dependence on diagnosis was demonstrated for N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (p less than 0.01) and monoamine oxidase (p less than 0.05), when dependence on segment was taken into account. Significant correlation with degree of inflammatory cell infiltration was seen in the gamma-glutamyltransferase (p less than 0.0001), 5'-nucleotidase (p less than 0.05), and monoamine oxidase (p less than 0.0001) activities. Patients with dysplasia had lower activity of N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (p less than 0.05) than those without dysplasia when evaluated by two-way analysis of variance modified for repeated measurements. Multienzyme analysis could distinguish between specimens with dysplasia and aneuploidy and those without when discriminant analyses were used.