Of note is the fact that this natural anti-NeuGcGM3 antibody

response decreases with age and is absent in most of the NSCLC patients assessed. Healthy human sera were tested by ELISA for the recognition of NeuGcGM3 and NeuAcGM3 gangliosides. In 65 out of 100 donors tested, anti-NeuGcGM3 antibodies of IgM and/or IgG isotype were detected. Only four donors showed a low reactivity against NeuAcGM3 (Fig. 1A). There were no differences between male and female anti-NeuGcGM3 antibody levels (Supporting Information Fig. 1). Previous studies about antibodies against common neuronal gangliosides showed that their levels significantly decreased with age [19]. In order to determine if the natural antibody levels against NeuGcGM3 are affected by age, the antibody response in donors of different ages was compared by ELISA. As shown in Figure 1B, there was a negative correlation between the level click here of the anti-NeuGcGM3 response and the increase of the donors’ age. Not only was the level of the anti-NeuGcGM3 response lower, but also the percentage of healthy donors with positive anti-NeuGcGM3 response decreased with age (Fig. 1C). Next, Navitoclax supplier we determined whether the lower content of anti-NeuGcM3 anti-bodies in elderly healthy donors was a consequence of a decrease in the concentration of IgM and IgG immunoglobulins. Total IgM

and IgG antibody levels did not decrease with the age of the healthy donors (Supporting

Information Fig. 2). Having evaluated the capacity of healthy human FAD antibodies to bind the ganglioside NeuGcGM3 by ELISA, we tested whether these antibodies are able to recognize the ganglioside in a natural context, exposed on the cytoplasmic membrane of tumor cells. To do this, the 100 human serum samples were incubated with the murine lymphocytic leukemia cell line L1210, which expresses NeuGcGM3 ganglioside [20]. NeuGcGM3 ganglioside expression on this cell line was confirmed by TLC-immunostaining (Supporting Information Fig. 3), and the antibody binding was measured by flow cytometry. Sera from 40 of the 65 healthy donors with a positive anti-NeuGcGM3 response by ELISA showed binding to L1210 cell line. Five of the sera that did not recognize NeuGcGM3 when tested by ELISA bound to this tumor cell line, presumably by binding to a different antigen. Figure 2A shows the results obtained with sera from three representative healthy donors with different levels of recognition of L1210 cells. To confirm that human serum antibodies recognize NeuGcGM3 ganglioside on the cell surface, we compared binding to L1210 with binding to cells that do not express this ganglioside. NeuGcGM3-negative cells were healthy human PBMCs and L1210 cmah-kd cells, which do not express the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of N-acetyl to N-glycolyl sialic acid.