Blood Group Antigen-Related Glycopitopes: Biological Functions And Implications in Immunogenesis, Cancer, And AIDS Pathogenesis (Medical Intelligence Unit)

This text focuses on the biological functions and cellular pathophysiology of blood group antigen (BGA)-related glycoepitopes. BGA-glycodeterminants are characterized as unique switch-on molecules intiating multicomponent and multistep cascade mechanisms of cell-cell type specific recognition and adhesion during embryogenesis, immunogenesis, tissue repair, remodelling, maturation, differentiation and regeneration. The role of the intracellular biochemical axis comprised of antigen presentation function, expression of BGA on the cell surface, and induction of cellular adhesion is analyzed relative to the clonal evolution and clonal immunoselection during tumour progression, cancer metastasis and immunogenesis. For many types of human cancer, an original definition is presented for the "metastatic" receptor, ligand pairs for blood-borne multicellular metastatic units and endothelium of the microvasculature of the target organs. The BGA-mediated mechanisms are discussed as they relate to the following: HIV infection spreading to a wide spectrum of target cells; immunodeficiency; and tissue organ "recirculation" receptors for HIV-infected cells. The book presents the concept of carbohydrate-based anti-cell recognition therapy of cancer metastsis and AIDS.