Antibody cross-linking of the thymocyte-specific cell surface molecule CTX causes abnormal mitosis and

J Robert1, D M Brown, L D Pasquier

  • 1University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York 14642, USA. robert@uhura.cc.rochester.edu

The thymocyte-specific cell surface molecule CTX is a developmentally regulated type I transmembrane protein of the immunoglobulin superfamily which, in the amphibian Xenopus, is exclusively expressed by a large fraction of cortical thymocytes and by different cell lines derived from independent spontaneous thymic tumors. Antibody cross-linking of CTX in vitro inhibits the growth of tumor cells and causes morphological alterations. Cells divide abnormally, accumulate in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle, and become multinucleated. This demonstrates, for the first time, that multinucleation can be induced by specifically cross-linking a cell surface molecule.

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