Measurement of arachidonate and its metabolites extracted from human normal and malignant gastrointestinal tissues.

Abstract

This is the first report of human gastrointestinal arachidonate and prostanoids measured quantitatively by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in extracts of human cancers and macroscopically normal tissues from the stomach and colon. There were microgram/g amounts of arachidonate, and the particularly high yield from the tumours may explain why they usually produce more prostaglandins than the normal tissues in which they arise. There was only a small conversion of the arachidonate into prostanoids. 6-Keto-PGF1 alpha was the most abundant metabolite measured, particularly in the tumour extracts, with smaller amounts of prostaglandins E2, F2 alpha and D2.