The Use of Con A Sepharose as an Affinity Adsorbent in a Simple Assay of Serum Sialyl and Fucosyltransferase and its Application in Tumour Diagnosis

Abstract

A considerably simplified assay for recording sialyl- and fucosyltransferase in human serum is presented. Serum samples incubated with labeled nucleotidesugar and glycosylated endogenous acceptor molecules were adsorbed to Con A Sepharose and quantitated by scintillation counting. The results correlated with those of a much more timeconsuming acid precipition method, and displayed a higher diagnostic sensitivity due to the improved specificity of the method and the combined recording of the two activities.

A correlation between serum sialyl- and fucosyltransferase activities as well as quantitative agreement between the amount of incorporated sialic acid and fucose indicated that the endogenous acceptor molecules were ratelimiting for transfer and may themselves have diagnostic potential.