ABSTRACT
Lymphocytes, like all eukaryote cells, possess at their surface carbohydrate chains linked to either proteins or lipids to form glycoproteins and glycolipids, respectively. These chains exhibit a wide variety of structures due to the multiple possibilities of linkages for glycan residues. Different biological roles have been proposed for carbohydrate chains (for example, see, Allen and Kisailus 1992): mainly, protection against hydrolases, involvement in protein conformation or as ligands for lectin-like proteins to mediate cellular interactions. Structures of carbohydrate chains are able to change as a function of various biological events, such as embryogenesis or cell differentiation, and disease processes, for example cancer (Hakomori 1996). Consequently, specific carbohydrate structures have been associated with several pathophysiological states and have been proposed as glycosidic markers.
