Roles of Carbohydrate-Mediated Cell Adhesion in Cancer Progression

It has long been known that malignant transformation is associated with the appearance of abnormal carbohydrate determinants on the cell surface. The monoclonal antibody approach to cancer-associated antigens, which prevailed worldwide in the early 1980s, further facilitated research on carbohydrate determinants, because not a few monoclonal antibodies that had preferential reactivity to cancer cells turned out to recognize carbohydrate determinants. The serum diagnosis of tumors using cancer-associated carbohydrate determinants has been covered by the national medical insurance program in Japan over the past two decades, and is widely accepted by clinicians to be clinically beneficial (Kannagi et al. 2004).