Lymphocytes desialylated

Sialic acid seems to be involved not only in regulation of the lifetime of soluble, serum glycoproteins but also of mammalian blood-cells. It was observed by Woodruff and Gesner474 that desialylated lymphocytes are reversibly trapped in liver they recirculate to the blood stream after about 24 h. This phenomenon was confinned with Listeria-specific, mouse T lymphocytes, which accumulated in the liver for one day, in contrast to the control cells.60 Reappearance of these cells in the circulation after one day may be explained by re-sialylation of their membrane glycoconjugates. This time period is in the range observed for the turnover of sialic acid in cell membranes, lasting, for example, for 33 h in rat-liver hepatocytes.475... 

Desialylated lymphocytes lose their orientation in the organism, show an increased agglutinability and are reversibly trapped in the liver (Woodruff and Gesner 1969). After resialylation during the following two days the lymphocytes leave the liver again and show normal behaviour in the circulation (Woodruff... 

This phenomenon seems to apply to circulating cells as well. In addition to the aforementioned studies with lymphocytes, Gattegno et al. (1974) found that desialylated erythrocytes are also rapidly removed from the circulation. Based upon these observations, Rogers and Korn-... 

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