Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The scientific description of lectins, a class of sugar‐binding proteins distinct from both sugar‐specific enzymes and antibodies, began nearly 100 years ago. The natural ligands of lectins include the sugar moieties of cell glycoproteins, glycolipids, and proteoglycans. Lectins can selectively recognize these potential information‐storing or ‐transferring structural elements and so contribute to regulating biological processes. Plant lectins are now a well‐established means of characterizing and localizing glycoconjugate‐bound sugar determinants. However, work on endogenous lectins is still confronted by many open questions, whose answers require detailed experiments using a suitable model system. Tumors offer an obvious model, particularly since they allow the possible diagnostic and therapeutic uses of lectins to be explored directly. Tumor lectinology employs a broad range of methods, from the chemical synthesis of the sugar components of neoglycoproteins, and their use to seek out cellular sugar receptors with histochemical and cell‐biological techniques, to the biochemical and immunological characterization of the lectins expressed by tumor cells and the use of homology analysis to find further functional domains. The outlook for clinical applications depends on the harmonious integration of these disparate disciplines in tumor lectinology.</jats:p>