AIM To investigate the effect of chymase on the mucin secretion from human bronchial epithelial cells. METHODS Primarily-cultured human bronchial epithelial (PCHBE) cells and normal human bronchial epithelial (NHBE) cells were cultured with chymase or other stimulus in a mixture of bronchial epithelial growth medium (BEGM) and Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM), and the quantities of s...

In the course of a series of investigations undertaken in this laboratory to obtain as complete a knowledge as possible of the physiology of normal and pathological joints, investigations concerning the metabolism of ‘synovial fluid mucin were undertaken. The two possible mechanisms for removal of mucin from the joint appear to be enzymatic destruction within the joint or removal by way of the ...

There is intense interest in how bacteria interact with mucin glycoproteins in order to colonise mucosal surfaces. In this study, we have assessed the feasibility of using recombinant mucin glycoproteins to study the interaction of the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori with MUC5AC, a mucin which the organism exhibits a distinct tropism for. Stable clonal populations of cells expressing a con...

OBJECTIVES Cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAPs) are the effector molecules of innate immunity, similar in potency to classic antibiotics that function in the first-line of defence against infectious agents. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of negatively charged mucins on the antibacterial activity of the positively charged cathelicidin LL-37 peptide, its synthetic anal...

Oral infection by Trypanosoma cruzi has been the primary cause of recent outbreaks of acute Chagas' diseases. This route of infection may involve selective binding of the metacyclic trypomastigote surface molecule gp82 to gastric mucin as a first step towards invasion of the gastric mucosal epithelium and subsequent systemic infection. Here we addressed that question by performing in vitro and ...

Pig colonic mucins isolated from the adherent mucus gel in the presence of proteinase inhibitors were solubilized by homogenization and the component mucins fractionated by CsC1 density-gradient centrifugation. Polymeric and reduced pig colonic mucin were both largely excluded on Sepharose CL-2B, papain-digested colonic mucin was included. The M(r) values of polymeric, reduced and digested muci...

Mucins synthesized by malignant cells may contribute (via decreased cellular adhesion and immune recognition) to cancer invasion and métas tases. Human mucins are derived from a heterogeneous family of genes, labeled MUCI-6. Our aim was to determine the pattern of mucin gene expression in normal, preneoplastic (intestinal metaplasia), and malignant gastric specimens. Probes and antibodies for ...

A hallmark of asthma is mucin overproduction, a condition that contributes to airway obstruction. The events responsible for mucin overproduction are not known but are thought to be associated with mediators of chronic inflammation. Others have shown that T-helper 2 (Th2) lymphocytes are required for mucous cell metaplasia, which then leads to mucin overproduction in animal models of allergy. W...

Complementary DNA clones encoding four different mucin core peptides have been isolated. However, the expression of these mucin genes in the colon has not been systematically studied. The present investigation used Northern blot analysis to study the expression of MUC1, MUC2, MUC3, and MUC4 mRNA in paired normal and cancerous colonic tissues, and nine colon cancer cell lines. Results were corre...

The binding of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-conjugated lectins to mucin in the human colon was studied by using fluorescence microscopy. In normal mucosa, lectins that preferentially bind to exposed N-acetyl-galactosamine residues (Dolichos biflorus agglutinin and soybean agglutinin) bound selectively to the goblet cell mucin of well-differentiated cells in the upper colonic crypt. By cont...