Pattern of isoaccepting transfer RNAs common to 26 patients with Hodgkin's disease.

The elution profiles of aminoacyl transfer RNAs from Hodgkin's tumors have been compared with the corresponding patterns from normal splenic tissue. Aminohexyl-Sepharose and reversed-phase 5 chromatography have been used in the fractionation studies. Three peaks of acceptor activity have been observed in phenylalanyl, histidyl, aspartyl, and asparaginyl transfer RNAs. A second peak was shown in the case of tyrosyl and methionyl transfer RNAs. Seryl transfer RNA showed no change in elution profile; namely, a single species was observed in both normal and tumor transfer RNAs. These observations are confirmation that Hodgkin's disease is a malignant disease. The uniformity of the extra species of tRNA suggests that there is a commonly occurring aberration in the cell of origin of the Hodgkin's tumor.