Malmi R, Söderström K O
Department of Pathology, University of Turku, Finland.
APMIS. 1991 Mar;99(3):233-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1991.tb05144.x.
Histological tissue sections of human testicular embryonal carcinoma from 13 patients and of a xenograft tumour in nude mice, as well as cell lines of human embryonal carcinoma, were investigated with eight different lectins to characterize the distribution of glycoconjugates in embryonal carcinoma. In all cases the malignant cells showed binding with Con A, WGA and RCA I conjugates, whereas other lectins were bound to some, but never to all, tumour cells in each group, revealing the heterogeneity of the malignant cells. A polarization of cancer cells was shown particularly with WGA and RCA I labelling, which was most intense on the luminal borders of the carcinoma cells, where pseudotubular structures were formed. The sugar staining properties were retained in cell culture and in the xenograft tumour. Regardless of the germ cell origin, embryonal carcinoma cells differed from normal germ cells. The distribution of glycoconjugates was also different from that of testicular carcinoma-in-situ germ cells, which share morphological features and the pattern of glycosylation with seminoma cells. However, the similarities in lectin binding pattern of seminomas and embryonal carcinomas suggest the close relationship between the two types of testicular malignancy, without excluding the possibility that embryonal carcinomas were derived from seminomas. Although lectins seem to be less important for differential diagnostic use in testicular cancer, our findings showed the usefulness of lectin histochemistry for characterization of embryonal carcinoma.
对13例人类睾丸胚胎癌的组织学切片、裸鼠体内异种移植瘤以及人类胚胎癌细胞系，用8种不同的凝集素进行研究，以表征胚胎癌中糖缀合物的分布。在所有病例中，恶性细胞均与刀豆球蛋白A（Con A）、小麦胚凝集素（WGA）和蓖麻凝集素I（RCA I）结合物结合，而其他凝集素仅与每组中的部分肿瘤细胞结合，并非所有肿瘤细胞，这揭示了恶性细胞的异质性。癌细胞的极化现象在WGA和RCA I标记中尤为明显，在癌细胞的腔面边界最为强烈，此处形成了假管状结构。糖染色特性在细胞培养和异种移植瘤中得以保留。无论生殖细胞起源如何，胚胎癌细胞均与正常生殖细胞不同。糖缀合物的分布也与原位睾丸癌生殖细胞不同，原位睾丸癌生殖细胞与精原细胞瘤细胞具有形态学特征和糖基化模式。然而，精原细胞瘤和胚胎癌在凝集素结合模式上的相似性表明这两种睾丸恶性肿瘤之间关系密切，但不排除胚胎癌源自精原细胞瘤的可能性。尽管凝集素对睾丸癌的鉴别诊断似乎不太重要，但我们的研究结果表明凝集素组织化学在表征胚胎癌方面具有实用性。
