Distribution of surface charge and concanavalin a-binding sites on normal and malignant transformed cells

Abstract

Measurement of the rate of agglutination with the positively charged poly- l-lysine of normal lymphocytes, Moloney-virus-transformed lymphoma cells, normal fibroblasts and SV40 transformed fibroblasts, has shown that the normal cells were agglutinated at a higher rate than the transformed cells. The labeling density of cationized ferritin in electron micrographs of sectioned cells, also indicated a higher charge density for the normal lymphocytes and fibroblasts. The normal cells showed a more regular clustered distribution of cationized ferritin than the transformed cells, and pre-fixation of cells with glutaraldehyde before labeling with cationized ferritin resulted in a random distribution in both types of cells. The transformed cells had a higher agglutinability than the normal cells by Concanavalin A (ConA) and this difference was also found after treatment of the cells with neuraminidase. Labeling with ConA-ferritin showed the same distribution on the sectioned normal and transformed cells. The results indicate that there was a difference in the redistribution of surface charge by cationized ferritin in normal and transformed cells and that there was no detectable difference in redistribution of ConA-binding sites with ConA-ferritin.