A new method for assaying adhesion of cancer cells to the greater omentum and its application for evaluating anti-adhesion activities of chemically synthesized oligosaccharides

A new ex vivo method for assaying adhesion of cancer cells to the greater o mentum has been developed using mouse greater omentum and [H-3]labelled hum an gastric and mouse colorectal cancer cells. Since the adhesion rates were found to increase up to 18 h and labelled cells seemed to be stable during the period, the present method could be useful for investigating adhesion of cancer cells to the greater omentum, which must occur at the first step of the peritoneal dissemination. The adhesion of cancer cells to the greate r omentum was inhibited by a series of chemically synthesized oligosacchari des and Gal beta1,3[3OMeGal beta1,4GlcNAc beta1,6]alpha Bn was found to be the best inhibitor. The anti-tumor effect of this novel tetrasaccharide in vivo was shown in preliminary experiments using Balb/c mice and colon26 cel ls.