Abstract
Summary
Some characteristics of heme biosynthesis were investigated in normal Wistar/Furth rat embryonic fibroblasts and spontaneously transformed cells producing rat C-type virus (WF-1). The activity of the control enzyme of the heme biosynthetic pathway, δ-aminolevulinic acid synthetase, was increased in mitochondria of the WF-1 line to 4 times the level of the normal embryo line, suggesting a relationship between transformation and heme biosynthetic activity. However, a direct correlation to ALA synthetase activity was observed when five rat fibroblastic cell lines were graded according to increasing levels of virus production suggesting that heme biosynthetic activity is directly related to the rate of virus production.
We thank Ismay Wars for excellent technical assistance and Dr. Donald P. Tschudy for helpful suggestions and reviewing the manuscript.
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