Regeneration of the surface glycoproteins of a transplantable mouse tumor cell after treatment with neuraminidase.

Strain A mouse ascites tumor cells that were treated with neuraminidase (EC 3.2.1.18) (these cells show decreased tumor-forming ability in allogeneic C3H mice) rapidly regenerate sialoglycoproteins at the cell surface during culture. The incorporation of labeled D-glucosamine into membrane glycoproteins of cells that were treated or untreated with neuraminidase proceeds at similar rates. Surface glycoproteins that contain sialic acid are synthesized de novo during culture of neuraminidase-treated cells, and in nondividing cells, synthesis is accompanied by turnover of the membrane glycoproteins. The rate of turnover of membrane glycoproteins that lack sialic acid residues is the same as that occurring in non-dividing cells that are not treated with neuraminidase and that are cultured under identical conditions. Turnover of the surface membrane of nondividing cells leads to the accumulation of glycoproteins in the supernatant medium of cell cultures. The rapid regeneration of cell surfaces that contain sialic acid by TA3 cells that were treated with neuraminidase, makes it unlikely that the rejection of these cells in vivo, in C3H mice, is due solely to the induction of a primary immune response to new or to previously concealed antigenic specificities that would be expressed on the surface of the sialic acid-depleted cell.