Abstract

A previous study demonstrated that animal erythrocytes such as horse, dog, rabbit and rat were agglutinated by the saline extracts of Arisaema amurense Maximowicz (AAM) while human erythrocytes were not by one of authors (Moon). In the present experiments, normal cells such as human erythrocytes, leukocytes, lung, liver, spleen, kidney, heart, stomach, adrenal gland and urinary bladder cells were suspended in 0.1% EDTA solution and tumor cells such as acute & chronic myelocytic leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, lung cancer, urinary bladder cancer, mice leukemia cells and leukocytes of multiple myeloma patients were suspended in 0.1% EDPA solution and performed agglutination test with AAM phytagglutinin which were extracted by various solvents such as saline, ammonium sulfate(AS ; 45%, 75% and 85% solution) and perchloric acid (PA : 0.45M, 0.75M and 1.5M solution). The effects of the saliva and sugars on agglutination inhibition were studied as well in the present paper with the following results. Normal cells were not agglutinated by AAM saline extracts while some of non leukemia patient’s leukocytes were agglutinated by AS an4 PA extracts. Tumor cells used in this experiment were highly susceptible to agglutination by AAM extracts in order PA, AS and saline extracts. AAM saline and AS extracts induced agglutination of tumor cells were inhibited by D-galactose and PA extracts were by L-fucose. All kinds of AAM extracts such as saline AS and PA induced agglutinations of tumor cells were inhibited by some human saliva and some were not and it was not related with secrete form and blood groups of saliva. These results indicate that AAM agglutinability by various extraction emphasizes the importance of examining a wide variety of cells in attempting to understand the interactions of PHA with an cell surface and AAM extracts are more useful than con-A and wheat germ agglutinin to study for cellular surface recept sites of tumor cells.