Increased airway mucins after cardiopulmonary bypass associated with postoperative respiratory complications in children.

Objective: Airway mucins may play an important role in the mechanism of respiratory complications after cardiopulmonary bypass in infants and children. Our aim was to measure airway mucin levels before and after cardiopulmonary bypass and to determine whether changes in mucin levels were associated with the development of respiratory complications.

Methods: Airway glycoprotein and mucins (MUC5AC, MUC5B, and MUC2) in serial small-volume airway lavage samples from 39 young children who underwent cardiac operations with cardiopulmonary bypass were measured by slot-blot assay with specific antimucin peptide antibodies.

Abnormal subcellular distribution of mature MUC2 and de novo MUC5AC mucins in adenomas of the rectum: immunohistochemical detection using non-VNTR antibodies to MUC2 and MUC5AC peptide.

Anti-mucin variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) antibodies have been used previously to demonstrate the de novo presence of MUC5AC and MUC6 mucin in colorectal adenomas and increased synthesis of MUC2, the major secreted mucin in normal colorectal mucosa. Here we examined secreted mucins in tubular, tubulovillous and villous adenomas of the rectum using non-VNTR antibodies designed to assess mature mucin. Mucin gene messenger RNAs were detected by in situ hybridization.

Mucin gene expression in the ileoanal reservoir is altered and may be relevant to the risk of inflammation and dysplasia.

Background: Adaptive colonic phenotypic change of the ileal mucosa is a feature of the ileoanal reservoir (IAR) with time, as described by mucin glycoprotein and histological analysis. Mucin gene expression is altered in colorectal neoplasia and inflammatory bowel disease but little is known of its expression in the IAR.

Aims: To examine the changes in mucin gene expression contributing to mucosal protection of the IAR against a background of known changes occurring in inflammatory disease and colorectal neoplasia.

Mucin expression in the ileoanal reservoir reflects incomplete mucosal adaptation.

Restorative proctocolectomy is regarded as a standard surgical procedure for patients who require a proctocolectomy for ulcerative colitis and familial adenomatous polyposis. The ileal mucosa undergoes colonic phenotypic change with time, but the extent and relevance of these changes to the long-term safety of the ileoanal pouch are unclear. The aim of this study was to study the mucin biology of this adaptive process in order to assess its extent and possible impact on pouch safety.

Differential expression of the chromosome 11 mucin genes in colorectal cancer.

The four secretory mucin genes clustered on chromosome 11, MUC2, MUC5AC, MUC5B and MUC6, were screened in 37 patients with cancers in the left hemi-colon or rectum and 10 normal rectal controls. The mucin genes were detected by in situ hybridization using oligonucleotide probes to the variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) sequences, while the proteins were stained with non-VNTR (MUC2, MUC5AC and MUC5B) or VNTR (MUC6) antibodies. Low levels of MUC2 mRNA were detected in non-mucinous adenocarcinomas (5/27) while a higher proportion of mucinous carcinomas (4/9) was positive.

Mucins in the gastrointestinal tract in health and disease.

Mucins form part of the dynamic, interactive mucosal defensive system active at the mucosal surface of the gastrointestinal tract. They are carbohydrate rich glycoproteins with unique molecular structure and chemical properties. The family of mucin (MUC) genes has 13 members that can be divided into secreted and membrane-associated forms each with characteristic protein domains and tissue specific glycosylation.

Mucin gene expression in Barrett's oesophagus: an in situ hybridisation and immunohistochemical study.

Background And Aims: Mucin genes are expressed in a site specific manner throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Little is known about the expression pattern in the oesophagus. In this study we have investigated MUC gene expression in both the normal oesophagus and specialised intestinal metaplasia (Barrett's oesophagus).

Reduction of sialic acid O-acetylation in human colonic mucins in the adenoma-carcinoma sequence.

The oligo-O-acetylation of sialic acids found in normal colonic mucins is greatly reduced in colorectal cancer. Mucins prepared from cancer tissue in adenocarcinoma showed this reduction, while normal O-acetylation was detected in resection margin and control cases and total mucin sialic acid content was significantly decreased in cancer vs. control samples.

Mutational analysis of the thyrotropin receptor gene in sporadic and familial feline thyrotoxicosis.

The characterization of a spontaneous animal model equivalent to a human form of thyrotoxicosis would provide a useful resource for the investigation of the human disorder. Feline thyrotoxicosis is the only common form of hyperthyroidism found in domestic or laboratory animals, but its etiopathogenesis remains poorly defined. We have used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify codons 480-640 of the previously uncharacterized feline thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) gene, and have determined the DNA sequence in this transmembrane domain region.

Colonic mucins in ulcerative colitis: evidence for loss of sulfation.

Colonic tissue obtained at surgery from control individuals and patients with ulcerative colitis was used to isolate mucins and to prepare mucin glycopolypeptides by pronase digestion. These were compared with mucins labelled with [35S] sulfate and [3H]-glucosamine after organ culture tissue samples from the same patients. A significant loss of mucin sulfation was detected in the colitis patients by both metabolic labelling and chemical analysis of the glycopolypeptides.

O-glycan biosynthesis in human colorectal adenoma cells during progression to cancer.

A human colonic adenoma cell line PC/AA derived from a familial polyposis coli patient was passaged in culture to form an intermediate premalignant clonogenic variant AA/C1 and, upon treatment with differentiating and carcinogenic agents, a cell line AA/C1/SB10 which is tumourigenic in nude mice. These three mucin-secreting cell lines have been used as a model to study the changes in O-glycan biosynthesis during the progression to cancer. Several glycosyltransferases involved in the synthesis, elongation and termination of the common O-glycan core structures were found to decrease in the progression sequence towards adenocarcinoma.