Walker R A
J Pathol. 1984 Oct;144(2):101-8. doi: 10.1002/path.1711440205.
The binding of peroxidase-labelled wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) to a series of 125 human breast carcinomas has been studied. Routine fixation and processing has been shown to have no deleterious effect on reactivity. In contrast to the homogeneous binding of WGA to normal and hyperplastic human breast previously reported, the binding of WGA to breast carcinomas exhibits heterogeneity. This is of two forms: (1) in relation to cell reactivity, which is significantly correlated to tumour differentiation, with fewer cells reacting in those carcinomas showing loss of histological differentiation; (2) with regard to the interaction between WGA and specific saccharides of cellular glycan-components, binding to sialic acid appearing to be of significance to varying degrees in some carcinomas but not in others nor, as previously reported, in normal breast. The alteration in WGA-saccharide interaction is an indicator of the heterogeneity of the carbohydrate chains of glycoproteins within neoplastic cells of the same tumour and between carcinomas. The other finding of note has been that of the significant association between heterogeneity of cellular reactivity to WGA and the presence of axillary lymph node metastasis, but a lack of correlation between virtual absence of reactivity and nodal metastasis.
研究了过氧化物酶标记的小麦胚凝集素（WGA）与125例人乳腺癌的结合情况。已证明常规固定和处理对反应性无有害影响。与先前报道的WGA与正常和增生性人乳腺的均匀结合不同，WGA与乳腺癌的结合表现出异质性。这有两种形式：（1）与细胞反应性有关，这与肿瘤分化显著相关，在那些显示组织学分化丧失的癌中，反应的细胞较少；（2）关于WGA与细胞聚糖成分的特定糖类之间的相互作用，与唾液酸的结合在某些癌中似乎在不同程度上具有重要意义，但在其他癌中则不然，也不像先前报道的那样在正常乳腺中具有重要意义。WGA-糖类相互作用的改变是同一肿瘤和不同癌之间肿瘤细胞内糖蛋白碳水化合物链异质性的指标。另一个值得注意的发现是，细胞对WGA反应性的异质性与腋窝淋巴结转移的存在之间存在显著关联，但反应几乎不存在与淋巴结转移之间缺乏相关性。
