Prostate cancer: normal prostate from human and hamster.

"Prostatic acid phosphatase" is a term that has been used widely and ambiguously to refer to acid phosphatase, which 1) is elevated in the sera of patients with various diseases of the prostate, 2) is inhibited by one or more specific inhibitors, 3) attacks one or more specific substrates, 4) has certain unique antigenic properties, 5) is extracted from homogenates of prostate, and 6) is obtained from prostate secretions, etc. Most of the data adduced to justify this term is indirect. We have purified specific kinds of cells from prostates and other tissues. These purified cells have served as sources of enzymes known to be derived from particular kinds of cells. We studied several substrates and one inhibitor that have been claimed useful for the measurement of prostatic acid phosphatase. None of the substrates or inhibitors studied appeared to offer much "specificity," which would allow us to distinguish acid phosphatase activity from prostatic epithelial cells from acid phosphatase activities from several other kinds of purified cells.