Increased lysozyme expression in gastric biopsies with intestinal metaplasia and pseudopyloric metaplasia.

Lysozyme is an innate enzyme with potent non-immunological antibacterial properties in the upper intestinal tract. Lysozyme expression (ly-ex) was investigated in 80 consecutive sets of gastric biopsies having normal gastric mucosa (n=20), chronic gastritis (n=20), gastric intestinal metaplasia (IM, n=20), and pseudopyloric metaplasia (PpM, n=20). In biopsies with normal mucosa and with chronic gastritis, the foveolar epithelium and the mucus neck cells of the fundic mucosa as well as the antropyloric glands had moderate (++) to marked (+++) ly-ex whereas the fundic glands proper did not express lysozyme.

"Glassy" cells in Barrett's mucosa.

Background: In 1991 we detected glandular cells with "glassy" cytoplasm (GCs) in human gastric mucosa having intestinal metaplasia (IM). GCs were subsequently found in the gastric mucosa of baboons.

Materials And Methods: The frequency of GCs (defined as glandular cells with a homogeneously pale, eosinophilic cytoplasm having a ground-glass appearance) was assessed in 403 human esophageal biopsies with columnar-lined esophagus.

Stem cells might participate in the cell turnover of duodenal adenomas.

Eighty-three duodenal adenomas were stained with hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) and with anti-lysozyme immunostain. Mature Paneth cells were those showing coarse brightly red cytoplasmic granules in H&E stain and Paneth cell precursors were those lysozyme-expressing cells that had remained undetected in H&E stain. In the adenomas, the number of mature Paneth cells/high power field varied from 4 to 12 (mean 6.