Reaction of various lectins to mucin derived from the different layers of rat gastric mucosa: Comparison of enzyme-linked lectin binding assay with lectin histochemistry

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the histochemical stainin g reactivities of lectins in rat stomach actually represent the gastric muc ins, and to estimate the utility, of the lectins for mucin histochemistry, In this paper; the lectin histochemistry was compared with an enzyme-linked lectin binding assay (ELLA) of the mucins derived from distinct regions an d layers of the Sprague-Dawley rat stomach and it was examined to determine the definite binding and problematic binding of the conventional lectin, A mong the 10 different biotinylated lectins, Canavalia ensiformis (ConA), Gr iffonia simplicifolia II (GS-II), Triticum vulgaris (WGA), Ricinus communis I(RCA-I), Arachis hypogaea (PNA), Griffonia max (SBA), Dolichos biflorurs (DBA), Ulex europaeus I (UEA-I), Sambucus nigra (SNA) and Maackia amurensis II (MAL-II), examined in this study, GS-II, SEA, DBA, UEA-I, SNA and MAL-I I bound clearly to the mucin of distinct regions and layers of the Sprague- Dan ley rat stomach in agreement with the results of ELLA, Namely GS-II lec tins preferentially bound to the mucin in the mucous neck cells of the corp us area, SEA and DBA clearly recognized the mucin in the covering epithelia l mucous cells in the corpus and antral area. UEA-I was widely bound to all the mucin present in both the corpus and antrum. On the other hand, SNA an d MAL-II could not react with the mucin obtained fi-om the gastric mucosa b ut was specifically bound to the mucin purified from the mucous gel layer. These results suggested that the lectins described above are useful histoch emical tools to recognize the mucus present in the different regions and la yers of Sprague-Dawley rat gastric mucosa.