Distribution of carbohydrate structures in individual maturation stages of myeloid leukemic cells

The distribution of peanut agglutinin (PNA) receptors, nonspecific cross-reacting antigen (NCA) molecule and 3-fucosyl-N-acetyllactosamine (FAL) in myeloid leukemic cells isolated by density gradient centrifugation was compared using immunofluorescence test (IF). Patients with acute myelocytic leukemias (AML) type M2 and M5 showed low percentage of NCA+ and PNA+ cells. In chronic and acute phase of chronic myelocytic leukemias (CML) the number of NCA containing cells increased and the amount of PNA-binding cells decreased as more mature granulocytic fractions were isolated on Ficoll--Uropoline density gradient. In patients with myeloblastic crisis of CML (CML-BC) the number of cells expressing FAL structure did not change in relation to maturation stage of myeloid cells. Our results revealed that the expression of various markers could change in a different way during the differentiation of cells from myeloblasts to mature granulocytes.