Activity of deoxyribonuclease as related to root-growth

IT has been repeatedly observed in the past few years that deoxyribonuclease (DNase) activity is increased in normal growing animal tissues^1-5. As postulated by Brody², it is possible that the increase in acid DNase activity counterbalances the greatly enhanced activity of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesizing enzymes and indeed determines the normal character of the growth. Cancerous tissues, on the contrary, have a lower DNase activity, at least when the activity is expressed per mgm. DNA (ref. 2), but not, apparently, when it is expressed per mgm. nitrogen⁶.