Mucins are high molecular weight glycoproteins secreted by salivary glands and epithelial cells lining the digestive, respiratory, and reproductive tracts. These glycoproteins, encoded in at least 13 distinct human genes, can be subdivided into gel-forming and membrane-associated forms. The gel-forming mucin MUC5B is secreted by mucous acinar cells in major and minor salivary glands, but little...

Previous work has shown strong interactions between pig gastric mucins and a highly deacetylated chitosan. Recently, mucins purified from different areas of the porcine stomach have been shown to differ in terms of their oligosaccharide substitution and net charge. How this regional variation may affect the properties of these mucins is of great interest in terms of the specificity of mucoadhes...

Mucosal surfaces line our body cavities and provide the interaction surface between commensal and pathogenic microbiota and the host. The barrier function of the mucosal layer is largely maintained by gel-forming mucin proteins that are secreted by goblet cells. In addition, mucosal epithelial cells express cell-bound mucins that have both barrier and signaling functions. The family of transmem...

The significance of mucins in cancers has led to the development of novel biomarkers and therapeutic agents against cancers. Despite significant advances in the understanding of mucins, systemic investigations into the role of mucins in cancer biology focusing particularly on the histological subtypes and stages, along with other variables, are yet to be carried out to discover potential novel ...

Mucins are O-glycosylated glycoproteins present on the apex of all wet-surfaced epithelia with a well-defined expression pattern, which is disrupted in response to a wide range of injuries or challenges. The aim of this study was to identify mucin gene sequences of gilthead sea bream (GSB), to determine its pattern of distribution in fish tissues and to analyse their transcriptional regulation ...

An antibody (PGM2B) recognizing a pig gastric-mucin apoprotein reacts with the surface epithelium of pig gastric mucosa. Virtually no reactivity was observed over the mucin-producing cells in the glands, which were recognized by the GlcNAc-selective Griffonia simplicifolia II (GSA-II) lectin. Mucins from the glandular tissue of the cardiac region, corpus and antrum were purified using isopycnic...

25 Brachyspira hyodysenteriae colonizes the pig colon resulting in mucohemorrhagic diarrhea and 26 growth retardation. Fecal mucus is a characteristic feature of swine dysentery; therefore we 27 investigated how the mucin environment changes in the colon during infection with B. 28 hyodysenteriae, and how these changes affect this bacterium's interaction with mucins. We 29 isolated and characte...

Miii-iiisderived from colonie cancers differ immunologically and chem ically from those in normal colonie epithelium. It has been demonstrated that the lectin from the peanut will bind to mucins present in colonie cancers and other neoplastic lesions but not to those from the normal colon. It was hypothesized, therefore, that in transformed colonie epithe lium the glycosylation of mucins occurs...

We have previously noted that sequential extraction of an asthmatic mucous exudate with 6 M guanidinium chloride yielded a fraction of the mucins that were most resistant to solubilization and of high Mr [Sheehan, Richardson, Fung, Howard and Thornton (1995) Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol. 13, 748-756]. Here we show that this mucin fraction is dominated (at least 96% of the total) by the low-cha...