Changed surface glycoprotein as a marker of malignancy in human leukaemic cells

Abstract

A STRUCTURAL difference in fucose-containing glycopeptides isolated from the surface of virally transformed fibroblasts has been described^1,2. Further studies revealed that this difference was caused by increased sialic acid content of the glycopeptides³. Previously we demonstrated⁴ that this phenomenon is not limited to the surface glycoprotein of virally transformed fibroblasts but also occurs in spontaneously chemically or virally transformed cells of fibroblastic, epithelioid and lymphoid morphologies maintained in vitro. Since similar results were obtained with mouse lyrmphosarcoma and rat hepatoma cells grown in vivo (ref. 5 and manuscript in preparation), we have extended our observations to human tumour biopsies. We now report that analogous changes occur in the surface glycopeptides of tumour cells obtained from peripheral blood of patients with active leukaemia or with leukaemic transformation of lymphosarcoma. In all cases peripheral blood from untreated patients containing at least 80% leukaemic cells in the white blood cell fraction, were used.