Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen

Full Name

Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen

Keywords

Gal-GalNAc; T antigen, CD176, Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen; TF

Background

The tumor-associated carbohydrate Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen (Gal-GalNAc) is involved in tumor cell adhesion and tissue invasion. It also causes an immune response, and overexpression of the antigen causes cancer cells to be more sensitive to natural killer cell lysis. The Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen is suppressed in normal healthy cells and represents one of the few chemically well-defined antigens associated with tumor malignancy. The presence of the Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen on the surface of cancer cells may result from a divergence from the normal pathway for O-linked glycosylation in these cells, most likely caused by inappropriate localization of the enzymes involved in synthesis of the disaccharide.