Abstract
Blood cells from which sialic acid has been split off by Vibrio cholerae neuraminidase (VCN) differ markedly in their physiological behavior as well as in antigenicity when compared with untreated cells (1). In this respect the “cryptic” antigenic structures on the cell membrane which become uncovered by VCN-treatment have found particular interest especially with regard to tumorimmunotherapy (1,2,3). It has been shown that the antigenic structures which are revealed on lymphocyte membranes after VCN-treatment exhibit serological similarities to the T antigen (4) originally described by Thomsen (5) and Friedenreich (6). Naturally occurring cytotoxic antibodies against VCN-treated autologous cells have widely been used to elucidate the antigenic specificity of the neo-antigen (3, 4,7,8,9,10). The observations that after incubation with VCN cells retain detectable amounts of the enzyme on their surface (11,12,13) and that the naturally occurring antibodies show serological specificity for VCN (8,10) led to the assumption that the bacterial neuraminidase might be involved in the cytotoxic reaction as a membrane-bound exogenous neo-antigen.
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