Expression mechanism of human uterine endometrial cancer-specific fucosylated carbohydrate chains - aberrant alpha-1-]4-fucosyl-transferases in uterine endometrial cancer-derived cell-lines with type-I carbohydrate chain.

Cells of uterine endometrial cancer cell line SNG-II were classified into two groups according to their reactivity with anti-uterine endometrial cancer monoclonal antibody (MSN-1), whose recognition antigen is mainly the Lewis(b) antigens; those that strongly reacted with MSN-1 (SNG-S group) and those that weakly reacted with it (SNG-W group). The SNG-S showed a higher activity of a 1-->4-fucosyltransferase activity than that of the SNG-W. The expression of Lewis(b) antigen was stronger in the SNG-S than that in the SNG-W. Therefore, the expression of uterine endometrial cancer-specific fucosylated carbohydrate could be mainly controlled by alpha-fucosyltransferase activities.