Aim: To investigate glycoconjugate changes on the cell surface of proliferative lesions and neoplasms of mice lungs at various stages of tumorigenesis, the relation between progressive development of mouse pulmonary tumors and expression of cell surface saccharide. Materials and methods: Thirty - one male A/J strain mice at 5 weeks of age were treated intraperitoneally with a single injection of 20 - methylcholanthrene (20 - MC), 292 pulmonary lesions including 31 hyperplasias, 145 alveolar adenomas, 61 papillary adenomas, 55 papillary adenocarcinomas and their combined type were obtained. The binding affinities of cells in normal respiratory epithelia and in proliferative lesions to four peroxidases - conjugated lectins, Maclura pomifera agglutinin (MPA), Arachis hypogea agglutinin (PNA), Ricinus communis agglutinin (RCA), and wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) were examined. Results: Cells of hyperplasia and alveolar adenoma showed fairly strong affinity to all the four lectins. However, part of papillary adenoma cells and greater part of papillary adenocarcinoma cells lost their binding affinity to MPA, PNA, and RCA, but not to WGA. The bindings of MPA, PNA and RNA were detected predominently on the luminal surfaces of benign tumors but not on the luminal surfaces of malignant tumors. WGA might bind to varied types of benign and malignant tumors. Pretreated with neuraminidase, the lesions enhanced the staining intensity for the four lectins, the binding sites of WGA to malignant tumor cells were numerous. A distinct difference in lectin binding affinity between hyperplasia / alveolar adenoma/papillary adenoma and papillary adenocarcinoma was clearly shown( x2 = 46.89, P ＜ 0.01, x2 = 36.77, P ＜ 0.01 and x2 = 52.87, P ＜ 0.01 ) in this experiment. The complex glycoconjugates on the cell surface of malignant and benign lesions during the development of pulmonary tumor were changed,malignant tumor cells differed from the surface of benign tumor cells, the levels of total sialic acid were higher in malignant tumor cells than in benign lesions. Conclusions: The expressions of glycoconjugates on cell surface by lectins may assist differential diagnosis of the malignant and benign lung lesions.