Expression mechanism of human uterine endometrial cancer-specific fucosylated carbohydrate chains: Aberrant α 1→4 fucosyltransferases in uterine endometrial cancer-derived cell lines with type I carbohydrate chain

Cells of uterine endometrial cancer cell line SNG-II were classified into two groups according to their reactivity with anti-uterine endometrial cancer monoclonal antibody (MSN-1), whose recognition antigen is mainly the Lewis(b) antigens; those that strongly reacted with MSN-1 (SNG-S group) and those that weakly reacted with it (SNG-W group). The SNG-S showed a higher activity of α 1→4-fucosyltransferase activity than that of the SNG-W. The expression of Lewis^b antigen was stronger in the SNG-S than that in the SNG-W. Therefore, the expression of uterine endometrial cancer-specific fucosylated carbohydrate could be mainly controlled by α-fucosyltransferase activities.