Carbohydrates represent a fundamental building unit of living organisms. Many contemporary results introduce these substances as medium with remarkable data storage capacity (glycocode) that is decoded by special receptor counterpartners, lectins. Animal so-called endogenous lectins are presented here as the biotinylated tools for normal lectin histochemistry in accompany with biotinylated (neo)glycoconjugates employed in reverse lectin histochemistry. Practical lesson how to employ these probes in cell/tissue labeling including multiple cell labeling at the single-cell level is also included. Position of glycocode and endogenous lectins in squamous epithelium biology under physiological condition and after the malignant transformation is shown as example of the employment of mentioned probes in research and diagnostics.

Charles University 1st Faculty of Medicine Institute of Anatomy U Nemocnice Czech Republic