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American Journal of Pathology, Vol 105, 47-53, Copyright © 1981 by American Society for Investigative Pathology

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Secretory component: a glandular epithelial cell marker

JP Harris and MA South

Secretory component (SC) has been demonstrated to be produced by both normal and malignantly transformed glandular epithelial cells. By an indirect immunofluorescent technique, this study surveys tumors of varied cellular origin in order to determine the reliability of SC as a marker for tumor cells derived from glandular epithelium. Both primary and metastatic tumors of glandular epithelial origin demonstrated SC fluorescence, while nonglandular epithelial tumors did not. This observation was extended to live single-cell preparations, which demonstrated intense cell-surface fluorescence only when glandular epithelial tumors cells were examined. Additionally, fixed, cytocentrifuged, single-cell preparations of glandular epithelial tumors demonstrated cytoplasmic SC fluorescence. When breast carcinoma was examined, all cases demonstrated SC, regardless of the degree of differentiation. This assay appears to have useful clinical application in that the finding of SC provides indication of the glandular epithelial origin of a malignantly transformed cell.