Involvement of histo-blood-group antigens in the susceptibility of colon carcinoma cells to natural killer-mediated cytotoxicity.

The susceptibility to natural-killer-cell lysis and expression of histo-blood-group antigens of 2 clones from a rat colon adenocarcinoma, of variants derived from them and of 17 human colon carcinoma cell lines were assessed in an attempt to determine if the major glycosidic tissue antigens of epithelial cells could influence the NK susceptibility of tumor target cells of epithelial origin. The rat REGb clone, which is relatively NK-sensitive, expressed higher levels of precursor structures T and Tn and lower levels of H antigenic determinants than the PROb clone, which displays higher resistance to NK-cell lysis. Cell variants were obtained from these 2 clones; it appeared that whether the cell variants were selected on the basis of expression of a blood-group antigenic determinant or on the basis of altered susceptibility to NK-cell lysis, there was a link between increased resistance and higher expression of cell-surface A and H histo-blood-group antigens, or conversely, between increased sensitivity and higher expression of precursor structures. Similar conclusions were obtained upon study of the human cell lines, since a significant correlation was found between the level of expression of T or Tn antigens and sensitivity to NK-cell lysis. A significant relationship was found between the expression of Lewis antigens and increased resistance to NK-cell-mediated cytotoxicity.