Over the last two decades, many studies carried out with the aid of lectins have firmly established that cell glycans usually change in the course of the normal processes of growth and development, as well as in pathological situations. We describe here the in vivo binding expression of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) to the U87 and U373 human glioblastoma cell lines exposed to various culture media i.e., media supplemented with either 10% (FCS10) or 1% (FCS1) fetal calf serum with or without 10 n Mol/l 17 beta-oestradiol (E2). After exposure to chemotherapeutic agents, the resistant variants (CR) developed by the two cell lines were also investigated. The quantitative cytochemical assessment of WGA binding was assessed by means of a cell image processor, which was also used to determine ploidy level (on Feulgen-stained nuclei) by means of DNA histogram typing (DHT). Our results clearly demonstrate that when U373 cells are cultured with E2, this steroid can modify the expression of WGA binding, whereas U87 cells were unaffected. Similarly, lowering the FCS level enhanced the WGA binding of the U373 cell line. Multidrug-resistant cell variants were associated with both aneuploidy and a dramatic decrease in cytochemical WGA expression.