Moreover, the glycan binding specificities of rHEL2 isolectins were comparable to that of peanut agglutinin in their ability to recognize O-glycans attached to leukosialin as tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens on the surface of K562 human leukemia cells.
Targeting sialophorin with siRNA resulted in the MCF7 breast cancer cell line exhibiting increased homotypic adhesion, decreased transendothelial migration, increased susceptibility to apoptosis, increased vulnerability to lysis by natural killer cells and decreased ability to produce tumours in mice.
These observations suggest CD43 as a potential contributor to tumor development and the functional ARF-p53 pathway is required for the elimination of cells with aberrant CD43 expression.
Tumor cell MUC1 and CD43 are glycosylated differently with sialyl-Lewis a and x epitopes and show variable interactions with E-selectin under physiological flow conditions.