Detailed characterization of a high-molecular-weight glycoprotein secreted by lung cancer cells

A cancer-associated, high-molecular-weight glycoprotein antigen (6B3.Ag) recognized by monoclonal antibody 6B3 was purified from culture medium of human large cell lung carcinoma cell line (HLC-2) and characterized biochemically and immunochemically. The 6B3.Ag was purified more than 1,200-fold with a yield of 30% by salting out, precipitation by acidification at pH 4.5, and chromatographies on Sepharose 4B and concanavalin A-Sepharose. The molecular weight of 6B3.Ag is approximately 1,000,000 and the molecule is a homodecamer of 94,000 subunits. The 6B3.Ag is a glycoprotein containing 22.9% sugars, consisting of both N- and O-glycoside chains. The N-terminal 19 amino acids were determined and only 4 out of 19 amino acid residues were different from those of an antigen, L3, secreted by lung carcinoma cell line Calu-1. The serum level of 6B3.Ag was determined in normal adults as well as patients with various diseases by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The mean serum level of 6B3.Ag was 3.1 micrograms/ml, ranging from 1.6 to 6.2 micrograms/ml in 131 healthy adults. When the cut-off value was set at 6.2 micrograms/ml, the incidence of positive values in the sera was elevated not only in malignant diseases such as hepatoma (73%) and leukemia (62%), but also in benign diseases such as chronic hepatitis (42%) and liver cirrhosis (63%). While the incidence of positive values was elevated in advanced liver diseases, namely, chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatoma, the cancer specificity of 6B3.Ag did not appear to be high.