The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-10-13

New York, oct. 1S-Sh0rtAge OG c chemical agent in the body, which acts somewhat like o cArburetor In governing tho most efficient con- sumption of fuel by the tissues, may answer ono oe. the riddleA of cancer.
 This chemical agent has been la. beied the PaSteur eflzyme by pr. Kurt c. Stern, physiological chem. ist ct the Yale School Of Medicine, and his associates who first on. alyzed It. Presence of the agent conserves energy in normal cells while it's possible shortage in cancer cells permits them to squander fuel.
 The action of the enxyme as De. iieved to be 90 important in H1Ains taining normal body functions that, without it, each adult would have to consume the equivalent of more than 10 leaves of bread daily.
 Brake on Termentatlon
 Addressing the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, meeting In the Hotel Penneylvania Saturday, pr. stern stated that the Pastetr enxyme acts aS c brake on Fermentation within body cells. This is important because Fermentation is c much less economical process than normal cell respiration and robs cells of valuable food reserves. When this ezlzyme aS present in h. sufficient quantities or absent, fer- mentetion takes plAce-f1uch like the production of alcohol by yeast which only partially burns the 2ood stored in cells and iS therefore siSa. economical.
 "The Pasteur enkyme protects the food stores of the body against needless destruction and iS, there- fore, Of great importance in biolog- ical economy" said pr. Stern an explaining c reaction which hes puzzled scientists ever since 1881. Fermentation breaks down sugar inccmpletely and hence does not make full use of the fuel value.
 The great French scientist Louis Pasteur discovered the power of oxygen to throttle" fermentation. This protection of food stores of the body by oxygen needs the pres. enct of aYi activator-the pAstetir ensyme-which is present in nor. mai living cells but stops working once the living tissue has been in- tured or destroyed.
 Cencer cells have been found to attack sugar at Q rate much higher than do normal, stable cells and to continue to form lactic Acid-a product of ferTnertation--oven in the presence of pure oxygen. Some normal body tissues, such as the retina of the eye, the lining Of the intestine and outer layers of the kidney, also show this peculiar waste of foodstuffs.
 The concept that this ls brought about by c 6hoTtage of the Pagteur enxyme would explain why ell can. cer cells form tactic acid in cir, whether or not their rate of respir- ation is high or low. It iS not known exactly what causes this deficiency but it is known that the pasteur effect is impaired # cells suffer chemical or mechanical damage and that tsisnors frequently arise in the wake of serious injury to nor- mal tissues.
 Pasteur EnxymO
 Alter three years of work in the Yale Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry ct the shcool of Medi- cine, Dr. Stern and his research as. sociates, pr. Joseph L. Melnick and Nr. Deiafield DuBois, have dis covered the chemical nature of the Pasteur enxyme, which acts in hue man cells to check fermentation in the presence of oxygen, The rec search has been conducted under the auspices of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research at Yale.
 Because the Pastevr enzyme and its chemical action are destroyed when tissue is injured, special pre- cautions had to be taken in this research. Using Q photo-c chemical technique, the investigators sub- jected living cells to many wave lengths of light of the vlsihle spec trim, and the process of fermentat- ton was observed in an atmosphere of oxygen and carbon monoxide.
 They found that the Pasteur en- yme hes 6 spectrum which is typ lcal ct a hemcprotein, thus making it 6 relative of the blood pigment hemoglohtn. s.s,ls g',s-
 The method employed hy the Ale investigators is comparable 70 that ueed iEr astronomy, in which an element must he studied from A dls- AmeAan vnesaagsks vuamwp vnnxRmus R,M Awfegwns&