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6th ESACP Congress, Heidelberg, April 7-11, 1999 |
A010
Mapping of carbohydrate epitopes by plant lectins and monoclonal antibodies
is an established descriptive approach in histochemistry. In recent years,
there is a growing appreciation that glycan chains of cellular glycoconjugates
excel as information-bearing molecules employing the sugar code system (1).
Since protein (lectin)-carbohydrate recognition in situ will mediate diverse
inter- and intracellular processes extending to host defense, growth
regulation, and cell adhesion and routing (2), it is tempting to devise and
exploit new tools histochemically. Custom-made neoglycoconjugates with the
synthetically versatile sugar part as homing device, antibodies against
endogenous lectins such as galectins and labeled tissue lectins which harbor
distinct fine-specificities relative to plant lectins are the keys to
innovative strategies in the search for molecules with impact on the course
of the malignant disease (3,4). Initial results with these probes attest
their value in diagnostic problems and unveil correlations with prognosis
(e.g. in the case of binding sites of histoblood group-A/H trisaccharides in
lung cancer) and parameters derived from syntactic structure analysis (5,6).
The presented results encourage to pursue and extend the outlined experimental
route of this emerging concept.
THE SUGAR CODE IN PATHOLOGY: NEW APPROACHES, NEW TOOLS
Gabius HJ
Institut für Physiologische Chemie, Tierärztliche Fakultät
Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, München, Germany
1. Gabius, H.-J., Gabius, S. (Eds) Glycosciences: Status and Perspectives.
Chapman & Hall, London, 1997
2. Gabius, H.-J. Eur. J. Biochem. 243, 543-576, 1997
3. Danguy, A. et al. Acta Anat. 161, 206-218, 1998
4. Gabius, H.-J. et al. Biotech. & Histochem. 73, 263-277, 1998
5. Kayser, K., Gabius, H.-J. Progr. Histochem. Cytochem. 32(2), 1-106, 1997
6. Kayser, K., Gabius, H.-J. Cell Tissue Res. 1999, in press.