“…In the past few years, O-linked carbohydrate antigens, such as mucin antigen (MUC1), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), sialyl LewisX (SLX), CA19-9, Sialyl Tn (STn), and Tn have been reported to be associated with altered adhesion (Fogel et al, 1983;Rice and Bevilacqua, 1989), invasion (Bolscher et al, 1988;Matsushita et al, 1991;Nakamori et al, 1994), recurrence, and prognosis (Itzkowitz et al, 1990;Niklinski et al, 1992;Ogawa et al, 1994;Cao et al, 1995;Diez et al, 1996;Ohgami et al, 1999) in lung cancer and other tumours. Mucin-type O-linked carbohydrates may constitute up to 80% of the total mass of these glycoproteins ; O-glycosylation has been shown to be important in the binding of cell adhesion molecules, cell differentiation, invasion, and metastasis in tumours (Nakamori et al, 1994;Clausen and Bennett, 1996;Sutherlin et al, 1997;Nomoto et al, 1999).…”