News of the Week
DNA method isolates disease-causing gene The gene that, when defective, can cause the devastating but rare disease called Lesch-Nyhan syndrome has been isolated using recombinant DNA techniques by researchers in California. Though no immediate medical benefits are expected to result from this accomplishment, it could open the way toward a better fundamental understanding of the disease. The research effort was led by University of California, San Diego, medical researcher Thomas Friedmann and his collaborators, including Douglas J. Jolly; they were joined by Stanford University biochemists Paul Berg and Hiroto Okayama. Some of their results are being published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lesch-Nyhan syndrome results when the enzyme hypoxanthineguanine phosphoribosyl transferase (HPRT) is catalytically inactive. Ordinarily, this enzyme acts in part of a salvage pathway in which purines are recycled into biosynthesis rather than being degraded to uric acid. Excesses of uric acid, a result of unknown genetic defects, are associated with gout. Lesch-Nyhan's syndrome, in contrast, is firmly associated with a defect in HPRT, which, among other things, results in the production of excess uric acid. However, the consequences of this syndrome are far more severe than is gout. Victims of this syndrome suffer mental retardation, indulge in compulsive selfdestructive behavior, and also are afflicted with severe kidney stone problems—a symptom that can be relieved with drugs. The levels of H P R T in nerve tissue are considerably higher than in most other tissues in the body of a healthy individual, thus suggesting that this enzyme plays a special but as yet poorly understood role in t h e nervous system. The source of the gene isolated by the California researchers was human placenta tissue. In a complex series of steps, the gene was teased away from other human genes and carried along amidst mouse genes. During some of the steps needed to identify the gene, it was put on a specially developed vehicle for mammalian genes, namely a plasmid or circular molecule of DNA derived from Simian Virus 40. 8
C&EN Aug. 23, 1982
The isolated human H P R T gene will serve at least two immediate research ends, according to Jolly of the California team. As a normal version of the gene, it can be used in searching for and testing of abnormal genes from diseased individuals. And two, because the gene comes from the X chromosome (LeschNyhan is sex-linked and thus affects only boys), it could prove helpful in locating other genes there. D
Chemicals caught up in stock market explosion Just as Wall Street was settling into an August torpor of low prices, economic ennui, and stockbrokers' vacations, a bomb went off that has shattered the summer. A steady drop in interest rates over the past several weeks, which nobody on the stock exchanges seemed to notice, ignited an explosive 50-point advance in the Dow Jones Industrial Aver-
Chemical stocks join the bull-market stampede Wed. close Aug. 18
D o w Jones Industrials Average Standard & Poor's 500 C&EN Chemical Stock Price Index Air Products Akzona Allied American Cyanamid Celanese Diamond Shamrock Dow Chemical Du Pont Ethyl W. R. Grace Hercules International Minerals Monsanto Olin Pennwalt Reichhold Chemicals Rohm & Haas Stauffer Chemical Union Carbide Witco Chemical
Thurs. close Aug. 12
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829.43 776.92 52.51
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age, with chemical companies in full participation. The fuse was lit by Henry Kaufman, managing director of Salomon Brothers, a guru on interest rates, and a long-time pessimist on prospects for 1982. In typically dry prose, Kaufman allows that a "fresh look" on interest rates is necessary because of the lethargic U.S. economy. Lack of a strong recovery in the second half of the year means that rates will fall sharply, he says, perhaps another four percentage points over the next 12 months. Kaufman's wide public ignored his gloomy comments on real business prospects over the next few quarters, thundered orders into the exchanges, and created the wildest week in recent decades. Volume broke all records, although actual prices did most of their movement on the first day of the frenzy. After two days of it, the scoresheet showed a 6 to 7% advance in stock market averages, including C&EN's index of chemical stocks. Of 20 major chemical companies sampled by C&EN, 18 rose in price. Only the price of Diamond Shamrock, linked more to oil and a potential merger than to chemicals, fell. Some of the advances in chemical stock prices were eye-catching. The top gainers were Union Carbide, Monsanto, W. R. Grace, and International Minerals & Chemical. Carbide shot up $3.50 to $45.75 per share, Monsanto $3.38 to $65.38, Grace $2.63 to $31.38, and IMC $2.63 to $27. Why such jumps when the business outlook still is soggy, to say the least? Wall Street is adept at such apparent illogic, especially in the middle of recessions. Typically, bond and then stock prices turn around half a year or more before the economy rebounds. In other words, stock prices can be an excellent forecaster of the economy in bad times. If that is what Wall Street is doing now, it could mean an end to the three-year economic pause gripping chemical and other industries since 1979. So it would be an important signal and bring great relief. But it will take another few weeks to see whether the stock advance lasts. Generally, volume bursts such as last week's are a good sign. A similar rush in stock prices after a long period of pessimism in April 1978 presaged a big, unexpected bulge in chemical and other company profits later that year. It is hard to see how that could happen now, but Wall Street may know. D
