Distribution of the Burkitt's lymphoma-associated antigen (BLA) in normal human tissue and malignant lymphoma as defined by immunohistological staining with monoclonal antibody 38.13.

The distribution of the Burkitt's lymphoma-associated antigen (BLA) or globotriaosylceramide (Pk antigen) in normal human tissues and in 194 haematopoietic neoplasms was demonstrated by immunoperoxidase labelling of frozen tissue sections with monoclonal antibody 38.13. Staining was seen in most tissues of the body and was most pronounced in the epithelial compartments. In normal lymphoid tissue only dendritic reticulum cells, sinus-lining cells, macrophages and endothelial cells stained whereas lymphocytes were unlabelled. Among neoplasms, BLA was expressed strongly in 4/5 Burkitt's lymphomas. Rather weak expression was seen in 8/120 of the other B-cell lymphomas which included cases of pre-B-stage, mid-stage and secretory-stage B-cell maturation. Expression of BLA was also found in 3/54 T-cell lymphomas (all 3 of activated T-cell phenotype), 1 case of Hodgkin's disease and in 1 case of monocytic sarcoma. We found no correlation between the expression of BLA and any particular surface Ig-type in the B-cell lymphomas. We conclude that BLA is neither a tumour-specific antigen, nor a typical B-cell differentiation antigen. The results concerned with the antigen distribution in human tissues and haematopoietic neoplasms preclude the use of 38.13 as a reagent for diagnosis or specific in vivo immunotherapy of Burkitt's lymphoma.