EXPRESSION OF LECTIN, INTERLEUKIN-2 AND HISTOPATHOLOGIC BLOOD-GROUP BINDING-SITES IN PROSTATE-CANCER AND ITS CORRELATION WITH INTEGRATED OPTICAL-DENSITY AND SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE-ANALYSIS

The binding of several biotinylated biologic probes was determined in sections of 20 surgical specimens of prostate cancer and of 21 biopsy specimens of hyperplastic prostate. Whereas neither the immunomodulato ry, galactoside-specific lectin from Viscum album nor the human beta-g alactoside-specific lectin (Mr 24 kd) or its specific antibody discern ed any remarkable differences, the lectin from Urtica dioica (UDA) and interleukin-2, the in vitro production of which is enhanced by this l ectin, exhibited obvious preference for hyperplastic cells. In additio n, the presence of binding sites for chemically synthesized blood grou p determinants was tested. Carcinoma cases revealed a higher percentag e of binding of synthetic blood group trisaccharide H than hyperplasia cases. Due to these differences, diverse parameters, derived from mea surement of integrated optical density (IOD) and from syntactic struct ure analysis, were col related with the extent of binding of these bio logic probes for the tumor cases. Primarily, parameters that are relat ed to computation of a minimum spanning tree were significantly differ ent in positive and negative cases for both UDA and interleukin-2. For the binding of blood group trisaccharide H the 5C exceeding rate, the 2CV deviation index and the distance of neighboring tumor cells with an IOD >5 were clearly dissimilar. Our results thus suggest an extensi on of the panel of biologic probes for prostate cancer and substantiat e the usefulness of correlations of binding of selected biologic probe s to features derived from the assessment of IOD and syntactic structu re analysis.