Jack fruit lectin-specific glycoconjugate expression during the progression of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia: a study on exfoliated cells.

The expression of glycoconjugates specific to Jack fruit lectin (JFL) was studied in the exfoliated squamous cells of different grades of intraepithelial and invasive neoplasia of the uterine cervix. It was observed that while normal cells showed almost negative binding, the lectin binding percentage of squamous cells significantly increased with increasing atypia of the epithelium. Correlation analysis between different groups revealed that mild lectin binding in cells had a negative correlation and intense binding had a positive correlation with various stages of tumor progression. These results indicate that the number of cells with aberrant expression of glycoconjugates increases as neoplastic transformation advances. The percentage of labeled and unlabeled cells also shows a continuous transition from low to severe grades of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and invasive carcinomas. The present study therefore shows that JFL may be used as a probe for further elaboration of detection and grading of precancerous and cancerous lesions of the uterine cervix.