Irregular distribution of the antigenic epithelial glycoprotein in gastric cancer.

Abstract

The carbohydrate-protein complexes occurring in the mucous epithelium of gastrointestinal tract have been extensively studied in recent years. One of the predominant components isolated from these sources was found to belong to the neutral mucopolysaccharide or f ucomucan in the carbohydrate type and, therefore, to be closely similar in chemical and physicochemical properties to the water-soluble blood-group substances. Structural investigations on these glycoproteins have been directed primarily towards their carbohydrate moiety and especially the terminal carbohydrate residues which are the determinants for the blood-group activity.Apart from the blood-group activity of these kinds of glycoproteins, our previous studies revealed that the epithelial glycoprotein isolated from human gastric mucosa gave the specific precipitate line with rabbit immune serum in the Ouchterlony double diffusion test and that, though this material possessed a high ABO blood-group activity in the hemagglutination-inhibition test, the precipitate reaction was independent of the blood-groups of materials. Using the fluorescent antibody technic, this antigenic glycoprotein was demonstrated to be localized intensely in mucoid cells and mucus secretion within the normal mucosa but not in other layers of stomach.Attempts in this experiment were devoted into the demonstration of the glycoprotein in gastric cancer tissues with an immunof luorescent technic and, especially, into the investigation how it would be distributed in cancer cells of different types.