Pancreatic cancer mucin from xenografts of SW1990 cells: isolation, characterization, and comparison to colon cancer mucin.

Mucin has been purified from nude mouse xenografts of SW1990 human pancreatic cancer cells. The mucin was eluted at the void volume of Sepharose CL-4B and was of density greater than 1.3 in CsCl gradients. The isolated mucin had a high content of threonine, serine, and proline, with 31% of the amino acid residues O-glycosylated. The average oligosaccharide composition was NeuAc1.8Fuc0.7Gal2.0GlcNAc1.7GalNAc1.4. Polyclonal rabbit antibodies prepared against the purified mucin recognized primarily mucin polypeptide, and there was extensive immunological cross-reaction between SW1990 pancreatic cancer mucin and LS174T colon cancer mucin. However, using carbohydrate-specific monoclonal antibodies, the two mucins were found to differ. SW1990 mucin had more Lewis, sialyl Lewis, and sialyl Lewis activity, while the colon cancer mucin had more sialyl T antigen. Since pancreatic mucins, whether from normal pancreas or pancreatic cancer, have not previously been well characterized, the availability of SW1990 pancreatic cancer mucin may be useful as a model for studying the expressing of organ-specific or cancer-associated antigens.