A. Asadi¹, S. M. Atyabi², S. Sadeghi³, S. Khatami³,  M. Ebrahimi-Rad³, S. Valadbeigi³, R. Saghiri³

¹Islamic Azad University North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran;
²Nanotechnology Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran;
e-mail: m_atiyabi@pasteur.ac.ir;
³Biochemistry Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran;
e-mail: saghiri@pasteur.ac.ir

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer worldwide. There are great relationships between the activities of adenosine deaminase (ADA), one of the enzymes in purine nucleotide pathway and carcinogenic process.  In the present study the activities of the total ADA, ADA1 and ADA2 were measured in the sera of the patients with ovarian cancer. In this study, activities of tADA, ADA1 and ADA2 were assessed in sera of 30 patients with ovarian cancer and 30 normal control individuals, using a modified Ellis method in which only ADA2 activity was measured in the present of a specific inhibitor, erythro-9-(2-hydroxy-3-nonyl) adenine (EHNA). Our results showed that the tADA, ADA1, and ADA2 serum activities of patients were found to be significantly increased (P < 0.05) than those of healthy control group. Although, ADA and its isoenzymes were not the specific markers for diagnosis of ovarian cancer, measurement of their activities may be used as a diagnostic means in ovarian cancer as well as the other analytical procedures.