Placental alkaline phosphatase activity is inversely related to cell growth rate in HeLaS3 cervical cancer cells.

Placental alkaline phosphatase is an inducible enzyme, expressed in HeLaS3 cells, which has been shown to possess protein phosphotyrosine phosphatase activity. Since phosphotyrosine levels are known to increase in actively dividing cells we sought an inverse correlation between PLAP activity and growth rate in HeLaS3 cells. We found that PLAP inducers, Na-butyrate, dexamethasone, bromodeoxyuridine and dibutyryl cAMP caused a dose-dependent reduction in growth rate. Mimosine, an agent that blocks the cell cycle in G1, caused an increase in PLAP activity whilst the mitogen EGF caused a corresponding decrease in PLAP activity. PLAP activity may therefore be related to cell proliferation rate.