Comparative study of the mucin-type sugar chains of human chorionic gonadotropin present in the urine of patients with trophoblastic diseases and healthy pregnant women.

Human chorionic gonadotropins (hCGs) highly purified from the urine of patients with trophoblastic diseases and of healthy pregnant women contain approximately four mucin-type sugar chains in one molecule. The structures of these sugar chains were studied comparatively by using a new sensitive method to obtain mucin-type sugar chains quantitatively as radioactive oligosaccharides from a small amount of glycoproteins. The mucin-type sugar chains of all hCGs include sialylated and nonsialylated Gal beta 1----3GalNAc and Gal beta 1----4GlcNAc beta 1----6(Gal beta 1----3)GalNAc. In the case of normal hCG and hydatidiform mole hCG, oligosaccharides containing the tetrasaccharide core occupy approximately 10% of the total mucin-type sugar chains. The ratio of the tetrasaccharide containing oligosaccharides is increased prominently to approximately 60% in choriocarcinoma hCG. The proportion in invasive mole hCG was also increased, but less than the proportion of choriocarcinoma hCG.