Antibodies reactive with cell surface carbohydrates.

Normal and immune sera from various animal species were fractionated on columns of Sepharose covalently coupled with the glycoprotein fetuin. Elution of the material bound to fetuin yielded low but reproducible amounts of protein, ranging from 0.02 to 0.2% of the protein mass of the input sera. This material has been identified by immunoelectrophoresis in agar and by zone electrophoresis on cellulose acetate as immunoglobulin. The Ig fractions bound and agglutinated erythrocytes of various species, and also bound to cells from various mouse tissues including heart, kidney, thymus, and spleen. In all cases, the binding was inhibited by glycoproteins such as fetuin and thyroglobulin, by a glycopeptide isolated from fetuin, and by some bacterial lipopolysaccharides. When the binding of these Ig fractions to mouse splenocytes was tested in the presence of 17 saccharides, no inhibition of binding was observed except by sialic acid, D-galactose, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, and D-mannose, all of which showed partial inhibition. Inasmuch as these four saccharides are present on the carbohydrate moiety of fetuin, the results suggest that the isolated material is a carbohydrate-specific Ig (CS-Ig) fraction of serum capable of binding to the carbohydrate portion of cell surface receptors and glycoproteins. When bound to lymphocytes, these CS-Ig molecules induced redistribution (patching and capping) of cell surface receptors. Moreover, the CS-Ig fractions from chicken and rabbit sera were weakly mitogenic for mouse splenic lymphocytes. CS-Ig fractions are useful new reagents for studying glycoproteins and the interactions and activities of cell surface carbohydrates.