[Blood group isoantigen and lectin binding studies in the human bladder cancer]

The purpose of this study is to investigate changes of glycoconjugates in the cancer cells of the urinary bladder by means of immunohistochemical methods. The normal bladder epithelium, cancerous lesions, and non-malignant epithelia of the tumor bearing bladder were examined by staining by avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex methods using blood group isoantigens (BGA) and lectins. The materials were obtained from 48 cystectomy specimens in our hospital in these seven years. Anti-A, B and H monoclonal antibodies were used for detecting BGA. GSI-A4, UEA-1, LTA-M, BPA, DBA and PNA were used as probes for lectins. The changes of glycoconjugates in the cancer cells of the bladder and in non-malignant epithelia of the tumor bearing bladder were studied by using six kinds of lectins. Each lectin binding rates of the primary lesions and the metastasized lesions was comparatively investigated. Positive rates for BGA of the high grade tumor was lower than that of the low grade. In the high grade tumor, GSI-A4, PNA and BPA showed high binding rates, while the DBA binding rate was low. The correlation between the histopathological grading of bladder tumor and the changes of glycoconjugates in the cells was suggestive of cancerous process.