The detection of
blood group antigens (BGA) in non-malignant prostates by previous workers has been at best inconsistent. BGA have not before been detected in prostatic
carcinomas. In this preliminary study, a variety of anti-BGA
reagents, with known specificities that involve the
carbohydrate backbone in addition to the BGA specific terminal
monosaccharides, were used to study the expression of the A and H (O) BGA in cryostat sections of 16 patients with benign
prostatic disease and nine with
prostatic cancer. Positive staining, appropriate to the patients'
blood group, was seen in all of the benign tissues when anti-BGA
reagents that included specificity against type 2 backbone structures were used. Staining was absent, however, if the
reagent had only type 1 specificity. The anti-A and anti-H (O)
reagents which gave the best staining patterns in benign tissues were used in malignant tissues. No
cancer was found to express A
antigen but eight of the nine
prostatic cancers were positive for the H (
O) antigen irrespective of
blood group. Using fresh frozen material and appropriate
reagents, BGA may be reproducibly detected in the epithelium of all non-malignant prostates, suggesting that a significant component of BGA is probably
lipid-based on type 2
carbohydrate backbone chains. Further studies of changes in BGA expression in
prostatic cancer are warranted.