Concanavalin A agglutinability and surface microvilli of dissociated normal and neoplastic pancreatic acinar cells of the rat

Isolated tumor cells of the transplantable pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma of the rat [8] were found to have numerous microvilli by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) when compared to normal acinar cells of the rat pancreas, and were more susceptible to agglutination by concanavalin A (ConA) than the normal acinar cells. However, isolated normal pancreatic acinar cells developed increased numbers of microvilli and microplicae upon 10 min in vitro stimulation with secretin, but this was not associated with an enhancement of concanavalin A-mediated agglutinability. It appears, therefore, that there is a lack of correlation between surface microvilli and lectin agglutinability for acinar cells of the rat pancreas. The neoplastic acinar cells isolated from the transplantable pancreatic acinar carcinoma of the rat should prove to be of value in delinearing differences in cell surface biology of normal and neoplastic epithelial cells.