Monoclonal antibody to desmosomal glycoprotein 1--a new epithelial marker for diagnostic pathology.

Desmosomes are intercellular adhesive junctions that occur in almost all epithelia and should therefore be useful as epithelial markers in tumour diagnosis. Here, we describe a monoclonal antibody, 32-2B, to a major desmosomal glycoprotein (dgl) which reacts with human tissues in paraffin sections. This antibody was tested for its ability to stain epithelia and tumours. It reacted with all epithelia tested and with every specimen of a wide range of carcinomas. It also stained meningiomas, another desmosome-containing tumour. It did not stain other types of tumours including lymphomas, melanomas, and various sarcomas, or normal tissues which lack desmosomes. These characteristics demonstrate that 32-2B is a reliable epithelial marker that may have a useful role in diagnostic histopathology.