the appearance and distribution of certain glycoconjugates during intestinal histogenesis in rat embryo

introduction: this investigation was undertaken to examine chemical nature of glycoconjugate components on the surface of developing rat intestinal cells during gut histogenesis. materials and methods: rat embryos at days 10-12 of gestation was fixed in b4g and processed for lectinhistochemistry. 5m paraffin sections were incubated with 10-15 ?g/ml solution of hrp/lecti ns from arachis hypogaea (pna) and dolichos biflorus (dba), in 0.1 m pbs, ph 7.2. all sections were developed in substrate medium containing 0.03% dab and 0.006% h2o2 in tris buffer ph 7.6. results: until day 15 of gestation none of two the tested lectin had any reaction with developing intestine. pna had strong reaction with the submucosal layer of intestine at days 15 and 16. with the exeption and goblet cell the epithelial cells of intestine had strong reaction from day 17 to the time of birth. dba reacted only with epithelial cells of large intestine two days before birth. conclusion: the marked changes in the appearance and distribution of the intestinal glycoconjugates during gut morphogenesis support the concept that rapid changes occur in the structure of complex carbohydrates during embryonic and fetal development. the findings also suggest that galnac and gal.-galnac.- containing glycoconjugate may be of functional importance in the regulation of the embryonic intestinal cells during the course of their development.