Agglutination of normal and rous sarcoma virus-transformed chick embryo cells by concanavalin A and wheat germ agglutinin.

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RODENT cells in culture transformed by oncogenic DNA viruses have surface sites that on normal cells are usually present in latent form only1,2. This difference in surface properties can be detected by plant glycoproteins such as wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and concanavalin A (Con A), which agglutinate only transformed cells, because they have certain carbohydrate moieties on their neoplastic surfaces1–4. According to some investigators, normal and neoplastic cells that have been freshly isolated also exhibit this marked difference3,5; according to others6,7, there is no such distinction. We have looked for such differences in cells transformed by RNA tumour viruses and in several types of normal and naturally occurring malignant cells and their normal counterparts.