Oligosaccharide Markers for Prognosis of Low-Risk Breast Cancer.

During the period since the last progress report, the expression of several different cell surface oligosaccharides and proteases have been defined on sections from 86 different ductal breast carcinomas. Monoclonal antibodies specific for the blood group related oligosaccharides were used to define the cell surface oligosaccharides and both immunofluorescence techniques and immuno streptavadin-biotin techniques were used to evaluate the fraction of tumor cells that are positive and the relative amount of reaction product as measured using an image processing system. The preliminary analysis of the available data has shown that the extended Lea-Lex oligosaccharide is a statistically significant indicator of poor prognosis following surgical removal of small, node-negative ductal breast carcinomas. cDNA libraries constructed from cells that express Lea-Lex have been screened and selected for cDNAs that alter the expression of this oligosaccharide in cancer cells. Two candidate genes have been identified and preliminarily characterized.