BACKGROUNDTo investigate the relationship between progressive development of mouse pulmonary tumors and expression of cell surface saccharide and to provide a theoretical basis for diagnosis of pulmonary benign and malignant lesions..

METHODSA/J strain mice at 5 weeks of age were treated intraperitoneally with 20-methylcholanthrene, and 292 pulmonary lesions including 237 benign lesions (hyperplasia, alveolar adenoma, and papillary adenoma) and 55 malignant tumors (papillary adenocarcinoma) were obtained. The binding affinities of cells in normal respiratory epithelia and various proliferative lesions to four peroxidase-conjugated lectins, Maclura pomifera agglutinin (MPA), Arachis hypogea agglutinin (PNA), Ricinus communis agglutinin (RCA), and wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) were examined.

RESULTSCells of hyperplasias and alveolar adenomas showed fairly strong affinities to all the lectins. However, most of papillary adenoma cells and papillary adenocarcinoma cells lost their binding affinities to MPA, PNA, and RCA, but not to WGA. Between the benign and malignant lesions, there were significant differences in binding affinities of cells to MPA (Chi-square =46.89,P < 0.01), PNA (Chi-square =36.77,P < 0.01) and RCA (Chi-square=52.87,P < 0.01), but not to WGA (Chi-square=0.09,P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSAccording to the different complex glycoconjugates on cell surface of various pulmonary lesions, the binding affinities to MPA, PNA and RCA are quite different between the benign and malignant lesions. The detection of bindings is helpful to the differential diagnosis of the pulmonary benign and malignant lesions.