Distribution of wheat germ agglutinin binding sites on normal human and guinea pig bone marrow cells: an ultrastructural histochemical study

The wheat germ agglutinin-gold labeled ovomucoid (WGA-Ovo-G) method has been employed in the ultrastructural localization of WGA surface receptor sites on gluteraldehyde-fixed normal human and guinea pig bone marrow cells. The number of gold particles per micron of cell surface were counted and data subjected to statistical analysis. WGA labeling of the bone marrow cells was found to be quite heavy and evenly distributed along the cell surface. Only macrophages, in both species, and a number of lymphocytes in the guinea pig exhibited limited WGA labeling. Comparison of morphologically similar cell types in human and guinea pig marrow indicated that WGA receptor sites were more abundant on the guinea pig hemic cells. WGA surface labeling was found to be not only related to cell type and to animal species but, in some instances, varied with the stage of maturation of a given cell line; viz., neutrophilic cell series in both man and guinea pig and erythrocytic cell series in the guinea pig.