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. 1987 Oct;56(4):425–432. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1987.218

Quantitation of MHC antigen expression on colorectal tumours and its association with tumour progression.

L G Durrant 1, K C Ballantyne 1, N C Armitage 1, R A Robins 1, R Marksman 1, J D Hardcastle 1, R W Baldwin 1
PMCID: PMC2001827  PMID: 3689659

Abstract

A flow cytometric technique has been established for accurately quantitating the cell surface density of MHC antigens and the percentage of cells expressing MHC antigens in 38 colorectal tumours. Thirty-four percent of tumours were partially or completely negative for HLA-ABC antigen expression. Although the quantity of HLA-ABC antigens varied widely, there was no correlation between the density of HLA-ABC antigens, or the percentage of cells expressing these antigens and clinicopathological stage. Fifty percent of the colorectal tumours expressed HLA-DR with varying antigen densities. All of the poorly differentiated tumours expressed HLA-DR but there was no correlation between expression of HLA-DR and clinicopathological stage. The aneuploid tumours expressed more HLA-ABC and HLA-DR antigens on a higher percentage of cells than the diploid tumours. Abnormal expression of the tumour associated antigens CEA, Y haptenic blood group and 791T p72 also correlated with expression of HLA-ABC and HLA-DR antigens on colorectal tumours. The majority of early derived in vitro dividing cells failed to express both HLA-ABC and HLA-DR antigens although they expressed high levels of tumour associated antigens. If there is a correlation between in vitro and in vivo growth perhaps tumours are maintained and seeded by MHC antigen negative cells.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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