Mucin Histochemistry of the Colon

Differences in the expression of mucus-associated antigens between proximal and distal human colon adenocarcinomas

“…Regional differences in the mucus components between proximal and distal mucosae has already been described using other approaches (Filipe & Branfoot, 1976, Cooper et al, 1980, Yonezawa et al, 1982.…”

“…Ultrastructurally, the mucin of goblet cells shows variable degrees of heterogeneity in the proximal segment (Shamsudding et al, 1982), but the most important regional difference concerns the structure of the mucin-type glycoprotein produced by the goblet cells: that is the degree of sulfation (Filipe & Branfoot, 1976), the presence of A, B and H blood group antigens (Cooper et al, 1980;Laboisse et al, 1980) and lectin binding sites (Yonezawa et al, 1982). Thus, the structural elaboration of these glycoproteins which might be closely related to differentiation of the colonic stem cells, depends on their regional location.…”

DNA aneuploidy in colorectal adenomas

“…Of the two DNA aneuploid (Brown et al, 1985). Other factors suggested to be of value in assessessing progression in the adenoma-carcinoma sequence include ultrastructural changes (Kaye et al, 1971;Fenoglio et al, 1975), cell kinetic and pericryptal fibroblast changes (Kaye et al, 1971), differences in mucin (Filipe & Branfoot, 1976;Culling et al, 1977) and lectin profiles (Boland et al, 1982), immunohistochemistry (Rognum et al, 1982) and the appearance of foetal blood group antigens (Cooper et al, 1980). However, none of these have yet proved of value in predicting the invasive potential of adenomas.…”

Development of a monoclonal antibody specifically reactive to gastrointestinal goblet cells.

“…While the stomach mostly contains neutral mucin, the small intestine contains sialic acid-rich mucin and the colon contains both sialomucins and neutral mucins together with sulfomucins (8). Furthermore, a fair amount of cytochemical, biochemical, and immunological data seem to indicate that mucin composition differs between goblet cells from the right and the left colon and between goblet cells from the upper and the lower portion of the same crypt (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16). From the study of the three major components of colonic mucins, 21 different oligosaccharide chains have been identified, some of them being shared by the thiree major colonic mucins, others being specific for a given mucin species (17).…”