Deamination rates of 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine, deoxycytidine and 5-methyl-2'-deoxycytidine in seven hematopoietic cell lines.

Enzymatic deamination activity was determined with tritium-labelled substrates in seven established hematopoietic cell lines, in order to compare deamination rates in intact vs. broken cells with cytosine arabinoside, deoxycytidine and 5-methyldeoxycytidine. Deaminase activity was found in all the cell lines, although it was very low in mouse leukemia L1210 cells. The deamination activity of intact cells varied from 1.0 to 38.3 pmoles/micrograms protein/30 min, being highest in the human null-cell ALL line (NALL-1), the human promyelocytic leukaemia line (HL-60) and the human T-ALL line (JM). The variation in specific activities in the broken cells was between 0.9 and 30.2 pmoles/micrograms protein/30 min. The deamination rate of deoxycytidine was in general higher than that of 5-methyldeoxycytidine or cytosine arabinoside.