Maackia amurensis agglutinin discriminates between normal and chronic leukemic human lymphocytes

Altered glycosylations of cell surface glycoproteins often accompany malignant transformation and lectins are useful for probing these alterations. Lymphocytes exhibit characteristic surface glycoproteins which serve as markers of cell status and development. The present work was undertaken to compare, on blots, the binding characteristics of membranes isolated from normal peripheral blood lymphocytes and chronic lymphatic leukemia cells to five different lectins, from Datura stramonium, Maackia amurensis, Sambucus nigra, Galanthus nivalis and Peanut. The Maackia amurensis lectin interacted with the normal lymphocytes but showed no binding to malignant cells. Hence, we suggest the Maackia lectin may be used to differentiate normal from leukemic cells.