The experiments described in this study examined cell membrane
oligosaccharides,
malignancy-related cell phenotypes and
tumor cell susceptibility to the killing effect of human cytotoxic cells. Short term
breast carcinoma (BCa) cell lines were prepared from biopsies obtained from patients at each of the pathological Stages I, II, III and from patients with disseminated liver
metastasis. Five patients at each stage donated the tissue. To obtain large enough quantities, the cells were cultured as monolayers for a brief period, then transferred to roller bottles using serum-free
hormone defined medium. Natural killer (NK) cells, lymphokine (IL-2)-activated killer (LAK), tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) and peripheral cytotoxic lymphocytes (CTL) from patients with BCa at PS I were used as the effector cells. Susceptibility of the
tumor cells to the killing effects of the effector cells was monitored by the well established 4 h 51Cr-release assay technique.
Growth factor expression, oncogenicity in athymic female mice and colonigenicity in soft
agar were used as parameters to monitor
breast carcinoma cell
malignancy phenotypes. The cell membrane
oligosaccharides were determined from the
carbohydrate elution profiles from BioGel P-6 columns. The results indicate a correlation between progression of
malignancy from PS I to the metastatic stage PS IV, and the magnitude of
malignancy phenotypes, resistance to the host killer cells and
oligosaccharide profile shift to a higher molecular size with increased sialylation and fucosylation of the
carbohydrate moieties.